This day won't last

Original title: هذا اليوم لن يدوم
A day that could also be a life. A young man who could also be an older woman. A nightmare that could also be a dream. In Tunisia, while it could also be somewhere else: on the border between the necessity and the fear to make a film, the necessity and the fear for the revolution, is ‘This day won’t last’ a cooperation with a distance. That is how this self-portrait turns into a group portrait.

Jonas Mekas brought the filmed diary into the experimental film area, but he is often on horseback with the test film. This is the case here, where the message takes precedence. Although only appearing after ten minutes, the problem of the filmmaker’s homosexuality dominates this rather elegant short film in which the intimate and personal images are aired from very elaborate still shots and in opposition to the rest of the short film shot like a breath. The problem of homosexuality is rooted in the desolation and poverty that plague Tunisia. The more the film advances, the more the filmmaker’s claim to see the abrogation of article 230 (integrated by France in 1913 into colonial law) which punishes homosexuality with three years in prison occupies the image and, above all, the words. A sensitive film that bears witness with society to the state of modern Tunisian society.

Translation made by the translator www.DeepL.com/Translator

– R.B.