The Franco-Tunisian composer Amine Bouhafa, recognized since the film “Timbuktu”, is on all fronts. After the success of the animated film “The summit of the gods”, his music is featured in the feature film “Les Harkis” and in the credits of the series on hip-hop “The world of tomorrow”.
Amine Bouhafa is on the rise, between Europe and North Africa. The musician was born in Tunisia. He began very early to play the piano, before being directed to the conservatory of Tunis. Crowned with a diploma in Arabic music, he went on to study subjects and earned a baccalaureate in mathematics. At the same time, he started composing for the image, and signed his first music for short films from the age of fifteen.
Then it’s the move to Paris: the Amine Bouhafa of science embarks on studies that make him a brilliant engineer, and the Amine Bouhafa of the arts perfects himself at the Paris Conservatory of Music. One thing leading to another, he built his filmography, alternating cinema and television projects, in Tunisia or Egypt. And it was in 2014 that the general public discovered him, thanks to his collaboration with the Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako on his film “Timbuktu”, a feature film presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It recounts the sudden eruption of fundamentalism in the city of Timbuktu in Mali.
>> To listen: “The Spiritual Dance”, excerpt from the music of the film “Timbuktu”
Pitfalls of Orientalism avoided
“Timbuktu” imposes the style of Amine Bouhafa: a classical writing embellished with oriental influences, which carefully avoids the pitfalls of orientalism. To a riot of effects, he prefers sober writing, which gives priority to elegant melodies.
The film “Timbuktu” won seven Césars, including that of best original music. Amine Bouhafa also received the France Musique-Sacem prize for film music and the Fespaco prize, the Pan-African film and television festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina. A consecration for the composer, then 29 years old.
With his foot in the stirrup, he went on to international collaborations, for example with the Malian director Souleymane Cissé or the French director Philippe Faucon. And its activity in Tunisia is no exception. Like his work with director Kaouther Ben Hania, for whom he composed the music for the film “La belle et la meute”, a noted feminist thriller.
>> To listen: “Beauty and the Dogs”, extract from the soundtrack of the film “La belle et la meute”
Compositions for ballets and a television series
But Amine Bouhafa is not confined to cinema or television. Thus his score for the ballet “Du Désir d’Horizon” imagined by the Burkinabè choreographer Salia Sanou or his symphonic suite, “Tolerance and Prohibitions”, for viola d’amore, duduk, percussion and orchestra, commissioned by the Orchestra Radio France Philharmonic, in tribute to the victims of the November 2015 attacks in Paris.
As for the cinema, Amine Bouhafa connects the projects, straddling France and the Maghreb. With “Looking for Oum Kulthum”, by Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari, he pays homage to the music of the legendary Egyptian singer and diva Oum Kalthoum. While with “Gagarine”, he collaborates with the composer brothers Evgueni and Sacha Galperine and for “Les Harkis” continues his collaboration with the filmmaker Philippe Faucon.
Finally, recently, Amine Bouhafa took advantage of his versatility to illustrate “The world of tomorrow”, a production by Arte and Netflix which looks back on the birth of French hip-hop in the 1980s and the genesis of the NTM group. The composer even collaborated with DJ Dee Nasty, a historical figure and “godfather” of the rap scene in France, to write the credits for this series. In his score, Amine Bouhafa also incorporates elements from urban music.
>> To listen: the music of the credits of the series “The world of tomorrow”
>> Also read: “The world of tomorrow” delves into the sources of French hip-hop and NTM
Music from the Swiss co-production “Sous les figs”
Soon, Amine Bouhafa will be in charge of Erige Sehiri’s first feature film, “Sous les figs”, which was chosen by Tunisia to represent the country at the Oscars. This film, co-produced by the Geneva company Akka Films, should be visible in Switzerland in early 2023.
Amine Bouhafa is a composer who strives to go beyond musical borders and cinematographic borders. He embodies, with others, this new generation of artists who do not deny their roots in their country of origin while exploring the many possibilities offered by the new international production circuits.
Subject radio: Pascal Knoerr
Adaptation web: olhor