A Tunisian fisherman falls desperately in love for a Berber dancer, glimpsed at the market. The girl, frightened by the rumours surrounding the fisherman, runs away to Paris. He sets after her and becomes rich. But destiny will once again come between them…

I went to Tunisia to shoot Jean Vignaud’s La Maison du Maltais in Sfax, the city of olives and jasmine (“Yasmina! Yasmina!” shout the flower sellers with a carnation tucked behind their ear) and in Gabès, with its pink ramparts and date palms reflected in a stream. The interesting thing about La Maison du Maltais lies in the fact that to authentically depict the street life of a Tunisian village, I had the actors acting, at least for the part set in Sfax, amongst the hustle and bustle of everyday life. A hidden camera filmed the actors who where dressed exactly like the villagers and moved amongst them without being recognised. All the walks and as many of the scenes as possible were shot in this way. The Italian Neorealists would later use this procedure, which dates back to the earliest period of moving pictures, to startling effect. It is the only appropriate way of ensuring a film’s longevity and satisfying future curiosity.

Henri Fescourt, La Foi et les montagnes, Paris 1959