Kalthoum Bornaz

Kalthoum Bornaz (August 24, 1945 – September 3, 2016) was a Tunisian screenwriter, film editor, and director who belonged to the first generation of women filmmakers in Tunisia. She was born in Tunisia on August 24, 1945 and moved to France in order to continue her education abroad. She worked both in Tunisia and overseas on the development of many feature-length films as an editor and director.

Kalthoum Bornaz was introduced to and fascinated by films since a very young age. This fascination comes from the important fact that she has parents that were really passionate of cinema. She did not follow her passion right away instead, she followed a major in Literature in Tunisia. Kalthoum Bornaz then left her home country, in order to complete her university education in France.

After her transition to France, Bornaz switched majors, and instead decided to follow cinema at the University of Paris III. She graduated in 1968 with a degree, and an expertise in film editing, script supervision, and montage from the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques situated in Paris. After the completion of her diploma, Bornaz remained in France and worked as a film technician in different programs, short films, and feature-length motion pictures.

Kalthoum Bornaz worked on a various number of feature length motion pictures as a coproducer, assistant producer, film technician, and in many other fields of her expertise. She also collaborated with various producers, and filmmakers in the production of a number of films such as Claude Chabrol, Roman Polanski, Randa Chahal-Sabbag. Bornaz not only produced films in collaboration with other directors since she also worked solo in producing documentaries, short films, and feature-length motion pictures.

Kalthoum Bornaz's first film was produced in 1986, Couleurs Fertiles, it was a short film of fifteen minutes made, and released in Tunisia. After the production of her first film, Bornaz realised a set of consecutive short films the following eight years of her career: Three Characters in Search of a Theatre, The Gaze of the Seagull, Wedding Nights in Tunisia. In 2000, she produced another short film called The Forest of El Medfoun, and it was her last short film production .

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