Subzero Blue

International Amateur Film Festival in Tunisia

Tunisia will be hosting the second edition of the International Amateur Film Festival starting from August 27 until September 3.

Organized by the Tunisian Federation of the Amateur Scenario Writers in conjunction with the Ministry of the Culture and the Safeguard of Heritage, the Festival will include an international contest of amateur films as well as conferences and workshops.

The jury of the contest is formed of distinguished international personalities such as famous Egyptian director Charni Rached, Senegalese director Modibo Diawara, Tunisian producer Hassen Daldoul, Venezuelan director Litchy Athualpa and Belgian director Greta Van Beptein.

6th Tunisian Blogger Meetup

Well, ok, I know it’s a bit too quick to have another one already, I mean this is the third meetup in less than a month, but well it’s the summer season and we all wanna have fun 🙂

Some Tunisians abroad, as well as non-Tunisian bloggers should be making it to this blogger meetup, so that should be cool.

The suggestion, it seems, is for Friday 26th at Sidi Chebaane Caf

Magnetic Cards to Enter Mosques in Tunisia: Not True!!!

While checking Google News today, I found a rather weird and alarming bit of news about Tunisia, taken from a site called Jihad Unspun.

The article claims that Tunisian Muslims must now carry magnetic ID cards to enter mosques for prayers.

It says, “According to Al-Hadi Mehanna, Tunisia

The Market

This
morning, while out shopping for some stuff, we passed by the Market in
La Marsa. It’s an indoor market where you can buy fruits,
vegetables, meat, chicken, honey, herbs, and a bunch of other
stuff.
vegetables, meat, chicken, honey, herbs, and a bunch of other stuff.
You can even find some pets sometimes like squirrels, hamsters, birds…etc.

I loved how all the different fruits, with their rich and beautiful colours looked together side by side. It was like a carnival of colours painting an amazing portrait.
Everything looked so fresh, juicy and very delicious.

Something else I really loved is this old man who came to the market dressed in his full traditional Tunisian wear (Jebba, Chechiyya and all).
They pulled up a chair for him in the middle of the market and there he sat just telling the different guys from the different shops what he needed as they went and got it for him.

img src=”http://photos25.flickr.com/35630270_3e77bb46bd_m.jpg” alt=”Old Man in Market” align=”right” border=”0″ height=”240″ hspace=”5″ width=”180″>It’s so nice to see how this old man actually still has fun going to the market, how he wears his best clothes when he goes there, how
the people there treat him with all respect and friendliness.

This was how Tunisia was everywhere in the days of our parents and grand parents.
Now it’s just a sweet memory that we love seeing every now and then through an old person who doesn’t want to let go of the beauty of those days.

These days we’re all stressed, we’re all running out of time, we all can’t afford to go to the market and deal with people in a friendly way, we just need to get in and out of some mall where there is the least personal interaction possible.

I remember the days when I was a kid and I used to go to the market in Bizerta with my grandfather. It wasn’t just about getting fish, meat, vegetables, fruits or anything else for the house, It was a lot more than that, It was also about the social side of it, a market is a place where you’d see and meet people and friends and connect with them.

Plus, you never find the kind of stuff there is in a market in any mall or shopping center. It’s just not the same quality.

I personally am going to try to get down to a market from now on whenever I need anything.
I want markets to exist forever in Tunisia, and that they don’t get replaced by malls. I hope future generations get to enjoy markets just like we and the generations before us did.

Internet Access on Tunisian Trains

The Tunisian national railway company (SNCFT) has announced that it is now providing internet access on board its long distance trains.

Passengers can now surf the web at a low cost from the comfort of their train cars.

This new service was made possible through a new venture financed by the National Solidarity Bank, a microcredit institution which provides young university graduates with low interest rate loans of up to 33,000 dinars to help them set up their own business ventures.

SNCFT transports more than 35 million passengers yearly, 5 million of them on long distance trains.

I think this is great and I hope we see more and more initiatives like this one popping up everywhere.

After The 5th Tunisian Blogger Meetup

Yesterday we had the fifth Tunisian blogger meetup in Kelibia.

The meetups keep getting longer and longer; yesterday’s meetup started at 10AM, when we met in the Abou Nawas Hotel parking, and went on to midnight.
By the time, we got home, we just headed straight to bed. There was no way we could blog about it, lol…

It was a really great meetup and so much fun. The best one up to now.
Kelibia is so beautiful and El Mansourah restaurant, the place we met, had lunch and swam in, is just breathtakingly amazing.

10 people made it to this meetup, which is pretty good considering that Kelibia is 100Kms away. We could have taken more people with us if they came to the Abou Nawas hotel parking as I suggested, as we actually left with place for 3 to 4 more bloggers.

The blogs represented in this meetup were: Adib, Evil Drako, Blogeuse, Marouen, Mouse Hunter, La Guilde, AquaCool, Subzero Blue.
We had 2 non-bloggers with us, who we are pushing to start blogs of their own soon 😉

We really missed all the people who couldn’t make it to the meetup. I hope we get to see you all very soon 🙂

We talked about a lot of stuff as usual, but this is maybe the meetup in which we talked the least about blogging, lol.
I guess we were too relaxed and loving the place to talk about technology and internet stuff.

So, what did we do?
We went to El Mansourah restaurant, where our dear Adib reserved a table for us right next to the water. We went down and started swimming as the other bloggers arrived.
When everyone was there, we ordered the food and then went back swimming.
We had our quite expensive lunch, then dived back into the water.
Then we had our desserts, paid and headed to the Kelibia fortress, a historical site overlooking all of Kelibia, that was built back in the Punic era. It’s huge, and it was really nice visiting it, it added a cultural side to our meetup.
Later we went to the caf

Digital Marathon 2005 in Bizerta

Bizerta

5th Tunisian Blogger Meetup Tomorrow

So, the fifth Tunisian blogger meetup is tomorrow in Kelibia.
I can’t wait to meet the old faces again and get to know the new people who will be coming.
Adib asked us all to try and be there before noon so we don’t lose our reservation in El Mansoura restaurant.

As for getting there, some people already have their transportation arranged and are going directly to Kelibia from or through some other place.

As for the people who are in Tunis, and who have cars or don’t know how to go, I suggest that we meet in the Abou Nawas Tunis hotel parking at 10AM so that we can split ourselves between the available cars and then drive to Kelibia together.

Marouen Mraihi has reserved a place with me in my car, which leaves one or two more places in my car’s backseat depending on how much you’ve had for dinner tonight 😛

I hope everyone will do their best to come. I know it’s summer, I know there are a million things going on in our lives, I know Kelibia is a bit far, but it’ll be fun and worth it, so please be there 🙂

Tunisian Fashion Week 2005

The first edition of “Tunisian Fashion Week” will be held in the coastal city of Hammamet from August 15 to August 17.

Six Tunisian fashion designers will present their creations. Their summer collections will feature wedding dresses, inspired from Tunisia’s traditional fashion heritage, as well as evening dresses.

A number of television channels are expected to cover the event.

“Tunisia Fashion Week” will also provide young creators with the opportunity to present their collections to the public in the company of more experienced designers.

The second edition of the event is scheduled for February 2006.

[Source: Tunisia Online]

Fifth Tunisian Blogger Meetup

So, upon the invitation of Adib, the next Tunisian blogger meetup will be held on Saturday, August 13th in Kelibia, or paradise as Adib likes to call it 😉

The programme includes having lunch at El Mansoura restaurant, which is on the beach right next to the water, swimming in Kelibia’s heavenly sea, soaking up some sun on it’s beautiful white beaches, playing some beach soccer and drinking some tea with pine nuts at the Caf