Tarek Ben Ammar

Born 12 June 1949 in Tunis, Tarek Ben Ammar is a Tunisian film producer and businessman. He is adviser to Vivendi and the Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal.


He is the majority shareholder of his affiliates, Quinta Communications Group, which includes many technical industries in French cinema like the laboratory CTA specializing in film images, Duran Duboi, specializing in post-production and special effects, and Scanlab.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsNFvtlcAg0&feature=related


In the field of sound, the group gathers Quinta SIS, The Joinville Auditoriums and Boulogne, and Cine-Stereo Acousti. In addition, the group became shareholder in February 2007 to 43% in the group Flash. On 19 December the same year, he bought for 13 million euros the remaining 57% of the investment fund ETMF2 (BNP Paribas). He also owns a 14% stake in the television channel TV Breizh Breton.


In association with Mediaset Investment, they own a 50% stake in Maghreb-oriented Tunisian channel, Nessma. From June 1996 to 1998, he was Michael Jackson’s manager of  and produced his world tour (52 concerts).

Albert Samama Chekli

Albert Samama Chekli

Born in Tunis in 1872 and died in 1934 in Tunis, Albert Samama Chekli is the first Tunisian filmmaker and a pioneer of national cinema.  HE is also one of the earliest filmmakers in the world.
 Of Spanish Jewish origin, his father, a banker, an aide to Sadok Bey, Albert knew very early social life in the palaces of Tunis. He continued his studies with Charles Martial Lavigerie and the Jesuits in Marseilles. He traveled extensively, to Cape Horn, China and Australia. He got his nickname "Chikli" from the Brotherhood of Firemen on Chikli Island, a small island on Lake of Tunis where Albert Samama organized some great parties.
In 1896, he returned to Tunisia and the capital with projects making the first film images with the photographer Soler. He corresponded with the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumiere, especially when he screened the films,  Leaving the Lumière factory in Lyon and The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat. Fascinated by photography and cinematography, but also by all the sciences and new technologies, he is thus the first to introduce the bicycle to Tunisia, the wireless telegraph and the first X-ray machine to a hospital of Tunis. He also rab the first aerial photographs of Tunisia in 1908, ballooning from Hammam Lif and Grombalia. He filmed the earthquake in Messina in 1908 and in 1909, shooting underwater. In 1910, he filmed Tuna fishing in Tunisia for the Prince of Monaco.
He developed a taste for documentary and reportage and begins to cover events in all of Tunisia for the studios Pathé and Gaumont and the newspapers Le Matin and L'Illustration. As a reporter, he also filmed the short Beylicale, making both shots anecdotal – like a solemn Hedi Bey on the steps of Bardo - historical, like the funeral of Naceur Bey.
Subsequently, he tries to make a kind of "encyclopedia of pictures of Tunisian life." That's why he went to the countryside and spent long weeks alongside rural populations. In his first fiction short, Zohra (1922), the first Tunisian film fiction, Samama-Chikli pays tribute to these tribes by telling the story of a young shipwrecked Frenchman, who fell from a plane that was collected by Bedouins and the Tunisian lived for a time with them. This film was very successful in his presentation to the Omnia Pathe Cinema in Tunis. He gave his daughter, Haydee Tamzali the leading role, and she became the first female performer and writer.
Samama-Chikli The Eclipse and then shoots, in 1923-1924, Ain el Ghazal or The Girl from Carthage. A drama of Arab life, the first feature film directed by a Tunisian. Produced with the support of Habib Bey who attended the filming in Tunis, he supplied his palace and all the extras including Samama-Chikli that were needed.  A melodrama, the film tells of the impossible love between a teacher and a girl whose father has promised her to the son of the sheikh.
He died in 1934 in Tunis.  The epitaph on his tomb reads: "Tireless in curiosity, daring in courage and daring in the enterprise, obstinate in the trial, resigned in misfortune, he leaves friends."

History Of Tunisian Cinema 

Tunisian Actress Hafsiya Harzi

Albert Samemah Chekli "The Blood of the Gazelle" 

The Tunisian cinema keeps about 600 art films at the National Film Archive. They treat all subjects of Tunisian society. Some of these films have achieved international success as a "sign of belonging" Cherfi Kamel (director Franco-Tunisian), which won first prize in the Venice Film Festival, Halfaouine, The Child of the Terraces and A Summer in La Goulette of Ferid Boughedir, Naceur Ktari Ambassadors, The Silences of the Palace Moufida Tlatli Essaïda Mohamed Zran red Satin and more recently made ​​by director Raja Amari.

Films exist in Tunisia since its appearance in the world. By 1896, the Lumiere brothers shoot moving pictures in the streets of Tunis. In 1919, the first feature film made ​​in Africa, "The Five Gentlemen Cursed" to-Luitz Morat, was shot in Tunisia. In 1927, the first Tunisian feature film in black and white is directed and produced by Albert Samemah Chekli "The Blood of the Gazelle" where his daughter played the main role and is presented as the first actress in the Arab world. The first film after independence is acted by Omar El Klifi "Al-Fajr" (Dawn) shot in 35 millimeter.

In 1927, the first Tunisian film distribution company, TUNIS-FILM begins the operation. After independence, the film production depended entirely on the limited company Tunisian film production and expansion (SATPEC), which handles the management of cinematographic activities in the country. However, in the 1980s, we witness the emergence of the private sector resulting in the liquidation of the SATPEC. A period that represents the golden age of Tunisian cinema with the emergence of a social character and films that deal with the question of authority of all kinds.