Sami Tlili's documentary "Cursed be the phosphate" tells the story of a movement that took place 3 years before the 2011 revolution in Tunisia : the protests against unemployment that started in 2008 in Redeyef, in Sud-Ost Tunisia, in a region that produces one of the most important economical asset of the country: phosphat. The protests lasted 6 months and were violently repressed by the Ben Ali government,  with people arrested, tortured, and several people killed. This revolt was an important  precusor for the movement that followed in 2011.

We show the first 4 minutes of the film

The protests that are currently taking place (January 2016) in Tunisia after Ridha Yahyaoui, a young job-seeker, committed suicide in Kasserine on Sunday the 17th, remind us that little has changed in the region, especially when it comes to unemployment : in the whole country, it increased from 12 to 15,3% between 2010 and 1015, and in the Kasserine region, it is even estimated at around 30 %.