Coco Cabasa – A film by Klaartje Til
Public Online Premiere, 2016 documentary Coco Cabasa
Coco Cabasa is an intimate portrait documentary about Kaouthar’s life and work. The film was made by Klaartje Til and was screened for the first time at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2016.
In this film Kaouthar travels back to Tunisia and France with filmmaker Klaartje Til to rediscover her roots and her journey to where she stands today as a feminist.
For several years, the film has been touring around the world, from Paris to Mexico, enjoying particular popularity at feminist festivals. It had an Online Premiere worldwide on 29th April 2020 and is now available on this web site.
Coco Cabasa the film
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About the film
In this intimate portrait about the feminist Kaouthar Darmoni, director Klaartje Til travels to Sousse, Tunisia, where Kaouthar grew up. Through interviews and conversations with key figures from her childhood, we learn how the young and rebellious ‘Coco’ had to fight hard to escape from the suppressing chains of society and her conservative family to maintain her freedom. Her dream was to go to Europe to study, the place where women were emancipated and free.
Once in Europe, Kaouthar had to face a big disillusion: the women there weren’t as free as she thought they would be and Western emancipation seemed to go hand in hand with suppressing femininity. Something she refused to do.
As a university lecturer in gender studies Kaouthar, inspired by her Tunisian roots, started her mission to heal femininity. With her taboo-breaking Goddess (belly)Dance method she awakens the primal female force which lays in the belly. With humor, confidence and her expressive personality she brings women back in contact with their feminine sensuality and power, the same way she learned it as a young girl back in Tunisia.
Even though she had hated living Tunisia, she started realizing how free and pure Tunisian women are. The femininity and sensuality amongst the women still remains as one of her most precious memories from her childhood.
About the maker
Klaartje Til (’94) was born and grew up with her three brothers in Africa as a daughter of an anthropologist. As a student at a secondary art school, she was already attending film classes at the age of 14. The first time she came in contact with documentaries was at the age of 15, when she had the chance to be part of the youth jury for the DocU award at the IDFA. Since this experience she wanted to focus on the making of documentaries. Therefor she attended for the School of Arts in Utrecht (HKU) and graduated at the age of 22 with the documentary ‘COCO CABASA’, that premiered in the Official Student Competition at the IDFA 2016.
Director & producer
Klaartje Til
Camera
Fiona Verkleij
Lukas de Kort
Sound
Apollonia van Dun
Aimen Toumi
Fixer & production manager Tunisia
Hamdi Ben Ahmed
Editing
Django Agterberg
Colorgrading
Bruno Ramos
Sounddesign
Bart Becker
Music composer
Adam Adamian
Musicians
Dhol en Darbuka: Garik Adamian
Oud: Komay Wahbi Abo Saleh
Sound Engineer
Edgar de Heer
Translation
Hamdi Ben Ahmed
Abdelhak Chahid Mohamed
(Motion) Graphic Design
Roel Meijering
Poster Design
Studio ANTWAN
Subtitles
Indra van ‘t Hooft
DCP
Erik Wiedenhof
Bie Heyninck
Heinz Jäggi
Marjolein Even & Jan Til
Lydia Til
Lotfi Soula
Henri Botter & Ardy van Ooij
Harro Presser
Ineke Slebos & Herman Morssink
Harry Verkleij & Françoise Verstraelen
Tamara Witsche
Marion Kooistra
Harry Brokhus
Linde Groven
Music
The music made for and used in Coco Cabasa can be listened to below and can be purchased at adamadamian.bandcamp.com/album/coco-cabasa
