Short film 'Ashes' by Tunisian director Mehdy Ajroudi: The meaning of forgiveness

Short film 'Ashes' by Tunisian director Mehdy Ajroudi: The meaning of forgiveness
April 16, 2022, 6:39 pm

Short film 'Ashes' (File photo: Lapress)

Mehdy Ajroudi is Tunisian director who will be able to inject new blood into Tunisian cinema. He was trained in the United States.

In the short film “Ashes”, filmed at the end of 2020 in southern Tunisia, Ajroudi was an actor, a screenwriter and was also a co-director with Lewis Martin Soucy.

The film was done by a Tunisian team. Sofiane El Fani worked on the image and Moncef Taleb on the sound. Note also the complicity of Moez Belhassen in this scriptwriting. It is produced by Mohamed Ayachi Ajroudi.

The story talks about a former French soldier haunted by his memory. On day, he decides to go to Tunisia to visit Ksar Ghilane. There, he hires a Tunisian tourist guide who is specialized in desert routes.

During this journey, the characters evolve and the guide faces with a painful discovery about his past in the face of this former soldier on the quest of redemption.

The writing of the film opts for clarity in the narration. It is free from all the flaws that can weigh on the story, especially between the Tunisian colonial era and the current era.

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The film is about the impossible redemption, but also about the meaning of forgiveness in the face of the atrocities committed by the military in Tunisia.

Mehdy Ajroudi said to the Lapress: “The basic idea was to write a film about Tunisian history and highlight our country.

I wanted to take the topical theme taken up by everyone in the wrong direction, that of young people who go illegally to Europe. I chose the people who fought for our country to be our territory”.