Ali Raïs

Directed by Mourad Ben Cheikh

Ali Raïs is a pirate armed by the Bey of Tunis. In the year 124, his fleet was arrested by the Marquis of Santa Cruz and he found himself a prisoner, with his six hundred men in Palermo. Italian witnesses will recognize him and denounce him to the Inquisition as a renegade, an indictment which is liable to the stake. Ali seeks to influence the course of the trial, he denies ever having been a Christian and proclaims himself a Muslim, the son of a Muslim. A long game of failure takes place between the court and the prisoner, he alternately tries to speed up or slow down the course of the trial depending on the nature of the information and testimony available to the inquisitors. We believe we are witnessing a modern trial where the shots alternate according to the investigations. This story of Ali Raïs was however not invented, the character is real and all the facts are recorded in a handwritten account of the hearings of the court of the inquisition.