Salle des Thèses – Université de Strasbourg – Strasbourg –

May 6-7, 2015

The conference « The circulation of film in the Middle East and North Africa: Local, national and transnational trajectories » that took place in Saint-Denis on May 8-9, 2014, provided an opportunity to explore the circulation of films from and in the MENA region from different perspectives. The purpose of the present conference is to pursue these themes, interrogating the very diverse relationships between spectators and films in North Africa and the Middle East. We will also consider the activities and practices associated with cinema in different locations as well as the film cultures that sustain such activities.

A set of questions:

1) Theoretical frameworks and methodology. What are the theoretical and methodological approaches that may enable researchers to account for the relationships between spectators and films today? What practices are considered to be cinema?

2) Audiences and commercial exhibition. Where are films projected today? What business models are adopted by those who project films to the public? What audiences do they target? What is the specificity of this particular type of film consumption, and what sociability is associated with it?

3)     Public and collective film screenings outside commercial distribution.

1. Studies of film festivals, their place in the circulation of films, the impact of the festival on the reception of the films, and their audiences.
2. New Initiatives.

4)     What are the categories that enable us to account for the ever increasing access that spectators have to films:

1. The multiplication of platforms and formats. What can we say about the influence of new technologies and the resulting shifts in visual culture? How have these new formats changed not only film production, but mainly film consumption, and spectators’ relationships to film? What are the media through which films are watched individually or collectively? What is the impact and role of television and of the ever growing number of platforms?
2. The forms and effects of piracy. What can we say about pirated access to paying channels or cable television, unlawful streaming or downloading, and pirated DVDs? Do the means of obtaining these films change the perception of cinema either directly or indirectly via the conditions in which they are watched (quality of the sound, subtitles or dubbing, type of screens, etc.)?

5)     Sites and forms of film culture. How do audiences develop a knowledge of film and what do they consider to be film and/or cinema? How are they initiated into, film and cinephilia? What about different categories (age or gender)? What do they watch and how?

For further information, please contact: Patricia Caillé (patricia.caille@unistra.fr)

Organizing Committee: Abdel Benchenna (Université de Paris XIII), Patricia Caillé (Université de Strasbourg), Claude Forest (Université de Strasbourg), Nolwenn Mingant (Université de Nantes)

Scientific Committee : Hamid Aidouni (Université Abdelmaled Essaadi, Tétouan), Mohammed Bakrim (critique de cinéma, Maroc), Tarek Ben Chaabane (Université de Carthage, Tunisie), Lamia Belkaied Guiga (ESAC, Tunis), Sonia Chamkhi (Institut Supérieur des Beaux-Arts, Tunis), Laurent Creton (Université Sorbonne nouvelle-Paris 3), Odile Goerg (Université de Paris 7), Kevin Dwyer, Claude Forest (Université de Strasbourg), Will Higbee (Université d’Exeter), Dina Iordanova (University of Saint-Andrews), Andrea Khalil (CUNY, New York), Florence Martin (Goucher College, Baltimore), Michel Serceau, Olivier Thévenin (Université de Haute Alsace), Elie Yazbek (Université Saint-Joseph, Beyrouth)

Le colloque est ouvert à tous mais l’inscription gratuite est souhaitable : colloquepublicsmena@gmail.com

Contact : colloquepublicsmena@gmail.com

Université de Strasbourg, Campus Esplanade, 22 rue René Descartes – Salle des Thèses – Nouveau Patio

Maison de l’Image – Vidéo les Beaux Jours, 31 Rue Kageneck, 67000 Strasbourg

Cinéma Star, 27 Rue du Jeu des enfants, 67000 Strasbourg