Wafa Lazhari

Film

"Souls wander through slumbering landscapes. 
They watch over their memories.
And over the city’s."

I think often of my father’s hometown, Thala, in north-western Tunisia. It is a town with many scars. And one of those scars has become intertwined with my own.
The Numidian king Jugurtha hid his treasure in Thala. When the Romans came to seize him and his treasure, the inhabitants, unable to defend themselves, gathered in the palace with the treasure. They made a great feast. Then they made a fire. They burned the treasure and the palace. Then they threw themselves into the flames, preferring death to servitude.
When the Romans arrived in Thala, they found nothing but ashes, ruins and stones. All that remained of the inhabitants was scattered amongst these stones.
I think of the family graveyard in Thala, where my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and the members of my father’s family are buried. These stones become the home of these dead, and of those who have lost them.

Wafa Lazhari

Découvrir le profil

With a training in architecture, Wafa Lazhari is a Tunisian visual artist and filmmaker. She entered Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains in 2024. Her artistic practice stems from the conceptual approach she developed during her years studying architecture. She explores moments of transition and transformation between reality and memory through media such as film, animation and drawing. The convergence of these mediums activates narrative devices. Her work has been show at the Villa Medici in Rome and at Kadist in Paris. Among contemporary art events in which she has featured are Les Instants Vidéo in Marseille, Dream City in Tunis and Jaou in Tunis. Her films have been selected for international festivals including the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

Production

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