At the end of April, with many countries in full lock-down, the CMCA wanted to (re) discover certain films selected for previous editions of PriMed. They asked directors for permission to put their films online for free. The film-makers agreed, so every day for a month a new documentary was posted on the PriMed Facebook page.
Since the launch of the programme, more than 52,000 visits have been recorded, a record. Among the most watched films are documentaries by directors Veronica Sáenz Gimenez, Cécile Allegra, Michele Coppari and Francesca Zannoni.
Selected in 2018, Veronica Sáenz Gimenez’ Gurs, histoire et mémoire is about the people who went to Gurs, a refugee camp in the French Pyrenees later converted to an internment camp.
Winner of the Mediterranean Issues Award in 2018, Cécile Allegra’s Libye, anatomie d’un crime is a compilation of horrifying interviews with Libyan men who fled their country after being imprisoned and tortured. Now refugees in Tunisia, they talk with great dignity about their terrible experience.
Bizerte. Histoire en spirale is a film by Michele Coppari and Francesca Zannoni about the Tunisian town of Bizerte. The film shows us some of the town’s inhabitants who, since 2011, have been hostage to groups of radical Islamists.
But all the documentaries on offer found a large audience. This is the first time that so many films about the Mediterranean have been offered online free over such a long period. Given its success the experience will be repeated – with the agreement of new directors.
