Hannibalalready the war
The film Hannibalan important Netflix production that will tell the life and achievements of famous people Carthaginian general Hannibal (247 BC – 183/181 BC), does not yet have a filming start date. And even less a broadcast date. But the project, directed by Antoine Fuqua, is already causing controversy in Tunisia, where Hannibal is a great historical figure and a national treasure. As reported by International mail, it was the choice of Denzel Washington to play the film’s lead role that particularly sparked debate. And this reached Parliament, where the Minister of Culture was questioned on this topic by a deputy.
MP Yassine Mami expressed his fears about the content of the film, suggesting that it was necessary “protect against the possible falsification of historical factsTo which Minister Hayet Guettat Guermazi responded that it is impossible to intervene in the artistic choices of the project. Even more so when it is a fiction, as is the case here. Above all, the controversy over the film does not suit the Tunisian authorities, who wish to enter into negotiations with Netflix to this endpart of the filming takes place in Tunisia.
What interests me is that they can shoot even one sequence in Tunisia and that it is mentioned. We want Tunisia to return to being a filming platform for foreign films.
Petition accuses Netflix of supporting “Afrocentrism”
The controversy has inflamed Tunisian social networks, has spread to Parliament and is at the origin of a challenging petition cancellation of the project. A petition in which Denzel Washington’s skin color is also explicitly mentioned, believing that it would be a “historical mistake” to show Hannibal as a sub-Saharan African. And not as a North African, or a “white Semite,” in the words of the Tunisian newspaper La Presse.
In Tunisia many voices are raised to affirm the Arab and Islamic culture of Tunisia against, according to these protest voices, a tendency that would like to make Tunisia “only” an African country. In other words, North African cultures are made invisible in favor of Central African cultures. So when they imagine Denzel Washington embodying a great figure of the ancient Carthaginian civilization, many disagree.
This controversy echoes the one caused by the documentary Queen Cleopatra in spring 2023, in which black British actress Adele James lends her features to the Egyptian queen. In the same idea that “Wokism” and “Afrocentrism” would be propagated by Netflix, part of the Arab and Egyptian press, as well as several personalities, protested against this casting choice.
Source: Cine Serie
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