Tomorrow Tripoli – The Revolution of the Rats

A film by FLORENT MARCIE

WARM Festival, Sarajevo, 2014
A WARM Partner and Co-Production Project

From the start of the Libyan revolution, a small group of insurgents from the town of Zintan, in the Nefoussa mountains, defied the regime far from the main rebel stronghold in Benghazi. Isolated, surrounded by Gaddafi’s army and cut off from the outside world, they fought their way toward Tripoli, advancing step by step, sacrifice after sacrifice. For eight months, Florent Marcie lived with them, filming their daily struggle and following their offensive until the fall of the dictator. Tomorrow Tripoli tells the story of these fighters and the revolution they believed in.

Marcie began photography during the Romanian Revolution in 1989 before turning to documentary filmmaking. He shoots, edits and produces his films independently, focusing on conflict. His previous works include Saïa, filmed on a frontline in Afghanistan, and Itchkéri Kenti, a feature-length documentary on the war in Chechnya.

The Sarajevo premiere became an event in itself. More than one hundred Libyan rebels chartered a plane to attend the screening at WARM. Many had never left Libya before. Some recorded the four-and-a-half-hour version of the film on their phones; others saw fallen relatives on screen for the first time. Their presence turned the premiere into a continuation of the story itself — a gathering of men who had fought for freedom and came to witness how their revolution had been remembered.