The controversy did not wait for the first day of shooting. In Tunisia, the announcement of a forthcoming film about the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca has divided opinion. The main cause is the choice of American actor Denzel Washington to play the historical figure. For some, the famous African-American actor is too old and, above all, too dark to portray Hannibal. In addition to reactions to the casting of the film, which will be directed by Antoine Fuqua but for which neither the shooting nor the release dates on Netflix are known, the script is also a cause for concern for Tunisians, who are determined to preserve the image they have of the man considered to be one of history's greatest military strategists – who died between 183 and 181 BC.

The debate, which began on social media and in some media outlets, has now reached Parliament. On Thursday, November 30, at the Assembly of the Representatives of the People (ARP), while the budget for the Ministry of Cultural Affairs was being discussed in plenary session as part of the 2024 Finance Law, MP Yassine Mami questioned Minister Hayet Ketat Guermazi about the Netflix project. "We have no information on the content. There's a risk of falsifying history," he said. "The Ministry should have a position on the subject." For Mami, who is also president of the Committee on Tourism, Culture and Services, it is about "defending Tunisian identity" and listening to "the reactions of civil society."

"It's fiction; it's their right. Hannibal is a historical figure, even if we're all proud that he's Tunisian... What could we do?" said the Minister of Culture, who sees the American blockbuster as an opportunity to give her country visibility. "What matters to me is that they shoot even one sequence in Tunisia and that it's mentioned," she said. "We want Tunisia to become a platform for foreign films again." In the past, the country has hosted numerous film shoots, including Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark, Anthony Minghella's The English Patient and the first four installments of George Lucas' Star Wars saga. Unlike Morocco, which has become a fashionable destination for film production, Tunisia has failed to capitalize on its experience.

On social media, some reactions flirt with racism. A petition signed by over 1,300 people "urges Netflix to cancel their so-called 'documentary'" and called on the Ministry of Culture to "enshrine in law measures protecting and fostering our culture, and to act against this attempt of stealing our history." The authors accused the streaming video platform of supporting the "racist Afrocentric movement" by pretending Hannibal was black in order to propagate their "ideology."

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