« Je me demande si, entre française, juive, et arabe, il faut choisir. Je rends visite à chacun de mes quatre grands-parents, juifs d’origine algérienne et tunisienne exilés en France dans les années 1960, pour interroger avec eux le sens de ces appartenances apparemment contradictoires qu’ils m’ont léguées. Mon trouble, hélas, est peu communicatif. » (Cléo Cohen)

Auteur-Réalisateur : Cléo Cohen
Image : Cléo Cohen
Son : Gilles Bénardeau
Montage : Saskia Berthod
Compositeur : Patrick Bismuth
Producteur : Rebecca Houzel
Producteur délégué : Petit à Petit Production
Diffuseur coprod. : viàOccitanie, Tënk
Participation : CNC, CNC. Fonds Images de la diversité, Procirep, Angoa-Agicoa, Scam – Brouillon d’un rêve, Sacem, Région Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Région Occitanie / Pyrénées-Méditérannée, Région Île-de-France, Institut français de Tunisie



Un film de Cléo Cohen sélectionné pour les Etats généraux du Film documentaire de Lussas 2022

« I wonder if you have to choose between being French, Jewish or Arabic. I go and visit each of my four grandparents, Algerian and Tunisian Jews who emigrated to France in the 1960s, to explore the meaning with them of these seemingly contradictory ethnic identities they bequeathed me. Unfortunately, my confusion is not particularly contagious. »
(Cléo Cohen)

« The director makes an attempt to locate herself, because historical erosions in society and politics have led to an identity crisis for Cléo Cohen, a young Frenchwoman. Is she Arab? Jewish? She struggles for clarification, aided by her grandparents, who all emigrated from the Maghreb to France as Jews. The questioning is playful, but determined. Cléo awakens memories, confronts, muses in the bathtub.
Cléo wants to find out from her grandmother Flavie whether she’s « sedje », able to marry. Flavie reacts evasively. Her sister would definitely be, Flavie thinks, and Cléo, too, knows roughly how to go about things. But she doesn’t seem entirely convinced. Cléo Cohen is in the middle of a process of discovery. Her grandparents play a role in this. While some came to France as Algerian Jews, others relocated from the neighbouring country of Tunisia, also as Jews. Cléo is confused. Denise’s native tongue, for example, is Arabic, she knows Arabic cuisine, but she’s not an Arab? Cléo talks to everyone, shoulders her way briskly but warmly into the past. She reads the writings of Albert Memmi, who grew up in Tunis as the son of Jewish parents under French colonial rule; she listens to Philippe Katerine’s song « Juifs arabes ». She travels to Tunisia. »



Film by Cléo Cohen slected for the Etats généraux du Film documentaire de Lussas 2022