Yémen : la République des tribus
Karel Prokop
2005 - 52 min - HDV - Couleur - France

The documentary movie by Karel Prokop is an invitation to discover of one of the most beautiful and mysterious country of the Arabic peninsula. But behind the spectacular pictures of its fortified villages, standing on rocky peaks or the ones of Sana'a, its capital city with a wonderful architecture, it's also and above all a travel into the Yemeni society. Indeed, this country, heir of the fabled Saba kingdom, confined until the middle of the twentieth century in the domination of imam of another time is nowadays in a complete mutation. Reunified in 1990 after several years of a bloody war between the Republican North and the Marxist South and no with a modern constitution, a parliament and a democratic organization, this country is for a large part dominated by tribes, which constitute its main social structure.
Proud, strong and during a long time hostile to any kind of foreign intrusion these tribes preserve jealously their traditions and their genuineness despite the growing westernization of the rest of the peninsula. What is the way to conciliate this will to keep their traditions and the necessity to enter into the modern world?
How to protect the most populated country of Arabia where the men never separate from their guns to protect themselves against the terrorism and fundamentalism threats?
Through this panoramic of the society and the diversity of the people encountered, Karel Prokop gives us the key of the understanding of the Yemeni society with a background of pictures which make us travel into the myths from yesterday to the realities from today.