They can’t resist the call of the sea. The men from the northern Tunisian peninsula of Cape Bon cast their jobs aside to become proud fishermen once a year who carry on an ancient ritual. Fishermen adopted a traditional technique of catching tuna fish from Italians and Spanish that they have continued on their own after Tunisia’s independence. With deep respect, the fishermen tell the story of Rais Labhar, the first Arabian captain who adopted the secret catching method and passed it on to fellow Tunisians. “Madrague” is the local name for the art of catching tuna.
Every year, they go to sea in their small boats to meet for “Matanza”. In the Matanza, these men are thrown together as they pull up huge nets, grab wriggling tuna with their bare hands, and throw them on the bottom of the boats, where the fish take their last breaths. For a short time, the fishermen are distracted by the bloody game from their daily poverty and lack of prospects. The Matanza ends with a huge festival to honour the tuna fish, which locals compare to a beautiful woman.
The Madrague of Sidi Daoud was already the background for two films from Tunisian filmmakers Samana Chikly and Hassan Daldoul. Chikly was a pioneer of Tunisian cinema at the beginning of the 20th Century (several images are used by Hichem Ben Ammar in this movie). Daldoul also addressed this subject in the 1970s.
