The Child of the Lazaret (2017)

Claude is the son of the guardian in chief of the village of Porto Farina (Ghar El Melh), north of Tunisia. It was still the colonial era. The political and social tension that is eating away at the country only provokes in the village timid and distant echoes. Claude, he bathes in a happy atmosphere where everything is impregnated with dreams and innocence. The prisoners he sees every day in the terrible penitentiary where the family lives are, in his eyes, barely different from all the others he meets outside. Likewise, he thinks that there is no line of demarcation between the natives and the French officials, representatives of the colonial authority. Also, is it for this reason that Claude wants to be close to the prisoners. He does not hesitate to provide them with some small services (he helps a prisoner to get cigarettes and matches). He wants to behave like many children of indigenous families (walk barefoot, enter a mosque and learn, as a simple game, the ablutions that precede prayer, or push his friends to enter the small church in the village ...)