LE LIVRE DES MARGES — Nacer Khemir

23 x 20 cm / 144 pages / November 2019

isbn: 978-2-35137-276-0

Textes et photogrammes: Nacer Khemir

Included in the livre : DVD of L’Histoire du Pays du Bon Dieu (1975, 51 minutes) and Par où commencer ? (2015, 69 minutes), two films by Nacer Khemir

—

“This book comes as a protest, or rather another way of bringing to life films wounded by their non-distribution. This is what it's all about: a new kind of multiscreen to bring together Nacer Khemir's first film, L'Histoire du Pays du Bon Dieu, released in 1975, with Par où commencer? made in 2015.

It's a process that only he can complete, bringing together his writing, painting, framing and speaking gestures. It's the work of a complete man, sparkling with novelties, who joins the adventure of certain writers who, from time immemorial, have jotted down apophthegms, sentences and remarks in the margins of books written by others.

For Khemir, it's clear: forty years on, he realizes that L'Histoire du Pays du Bon Dieu may not have been the best way to get people thinking about his country, Tunisia, and that's why he produced Par où commencer? But in between, far from any inertia, he hasn't stopped making films that have given him an undeniable authority in cinema.

Le Livre des marges is a new work that gives ideas and helps us find the key to better transmitting and transforming what represents the center of gravity of Nacer Khemir's work: childhood, the spearhead of a people's creative drive on the road to happiness”.

Guy Chapouillié