History on screen: tensions and dialogues in North African cinema

This symposium aims to explore the relationship between cinema and the history of North African societies. Since its inception, cinema has questioned historical events and explored their transposition to the screen. As early as the 1970s, Marc Ferro (1977-1993), an eminent historian associated with the Annales school, proposed studying cinema as a form of historical archive, insofar as cinematographic works convey underlying societal values, representations and tensions of the era to which they belong.

The rapprochement between history and cinema also calls into question the relationship between the written word and the image, between scriptural text and filmic monstration, between the imaginary and reality - or the true/veridical -, between iconic and semiotic language and verbal language. This symposium aims to interrogate these relationships and tensions through an examination of Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian and Libyan films, as well as other cinemas from the region.

These cinemas are today witnessing a return to "the colonial history of the Maghreb", particularly to French colonization. This cinema is also seeing renewed interest in the history of immigration to the other side of the Mediterranean, in political history (particularly that of the leaden years), in the history of communities, ideas and mentalities, in the history of social and cultural practices, and in the anthropological structures of the imaginary - not forgetting the profound changes that have taken place in these countries since 2011. On the occasion of this conference: History on screen: tensions and dialogues in North African cinemas, devoted to the History told by North African cinemas in their multiple facets, several questions will be addressed:

- Can we speak, in North Africa, of a cinema-document or a filmic writing of History? 
- Can we speak of a historical discourse structured and carried by cinema?
- How do films reveal the silences and gaps in the history of North African societies?
- Do these filmic narratives show a cultural plurality and complexity, despite the constructions of national novels?
- What is the role of cinema in the constitution of historical knowledge about North Africa?
- Can cinema be a relevant tool for questioning the relationship between the imaginary and the "real"?
- How can historical research on these societies enrich the understanding of cinematographic works?
- Is there collaboration between North African historians and filmmakers in scripting and filming historical events?
- Is there work being done to archive and safeguard old films, including those threatened with disappearance?

Program

November 25, 2025

10:30 am Welcome

11:00 am-11:30 am Presentations

Panel 1. History, memory and cinema

Moderator: Brahim Hasnaouy

11:30am-12:00pm Marie Pierre-Bouthier (Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens): "'Il ne doit s'agir d'autre chose que d'un film marocain' - Écrire, monter, filmer l'Histoire (du cinéma) du Maroc: the parallel "destinies" of Jean Fléchet and Ahmed Bouanani"

12:00-12:30 Abdelkader Nekhouet Belaleug (Centre universitaire Ahmed Salhi, Naâma): "Filmer l'oubli, réveiller l'histoire: le Maghreb entre mémoire et migration"

Lunch break

Panel 2. Cinema in the service of promoting a memory and heritage

Moderator: Kamal Naït Zerad

14h00-14h30 Daniela Merolla: "History and memory: la réalisation et la réception des premiers films d'Abderrahmane Bouguermouh sur la guerre de libération"

14h30-15h00 Chahine Berriche (independent researcher): "Cinéma d'archives amazighes en Tunisie: mémoire minoritaire, récit historique et esthétique de la survivance"

15h00-15h30 Abdellatif Fdil (ISMAC, Rabat): "Cinema at the service of Amazigh heritage: preservation and valorization"

3:30-4:00 Break

Film screening, amphitheater 1

Moderator: Daniela Merolla

16h00-18h00 Introduction and projection of Trois lunes derrière une colline by Abdellatif Fdil

18h00-18:30 Debate and exchanges after the film

End of the first day

November 26, 2025

10:00 Welcome

Panel 3. Diversité des mémoires de la résistance à l'époque coloniale

Moderator: Mohand Anaris

10:30-11:00 Rachida Fitas (Inalco, Paris): "Mémoire kabyle et contre-récit historique dans La Braise des âmes: une lecture esthétique de la mémoire"

11:00-11:30 Elhoussain Idbahsine (Université Ibn Zohr) : "Moroccan Amazigh historical drama film"

11:30-12:00 Safaa Bendhiba (Université Ibn Tofail, Kénitra): "Mémoire 14 d'Ahmed Bouanani : A Film of Resistance and Reappropriation of Colonial Archives"

12:00-12:30 Ahlam Lamjahdi (Mohamed I University, Nador): "The Screen as Counter-Archive: Revisiting the Rif War through Contemporary Moroccan Cinema"

Lunch Break

Panel 4. Approaches to history in cinema

Moderator: Amar Ameziane

14h00-14h30 Brahim Hasnaouy (IRCAM, Rabat): "L'incarnation de l'événement historique dans le cinéma marocain: étude de cas"

14h30-15h00 Jamila Annab (Institut Supérieur des Métiers de l'Audiovisuel et du Cinéma, Rabat): "Documentary cinema and history: does documentary evoke the past or rewrite it? "

3:00-3:30 pm Menel Zeggar (Inalco, Paris): "Staging a historical turning point: the events of October 1988 in filmic narratives"

3:30-4:00 pm Break

Panel 5. Cinema as an agent of history
Moderator: Menel Zeggar

16:00-16:30 Mohamed Marzagui (Kaddi Ayad University, Marrakech): "Documentary as a megaphone for the forgotten of history: the case of Sayyda al-Hurra"

16h30-17h00 Mohamed Zeroual (FLSH, Fès-Saïs) and Mohamed Oulmghni (Université Sultan Moulay Slimane, Béni Mellal): "Histoire de la présence chrétienne en Afrique du nord à travers les œuvres cinématographiques : étude de cas filmiques"

17h0-17h30 Ali Oublal (independent researcher): "Amazigh Soussian Memory: beyond Narratives and imageries"

November 27, 2025

Panel 5. Cinema: a space for memorial diversity?

Moderator: Brahim Hasnaouy

10:30-11:00 Emmanuel Alcaraz (Science Po Aix / IRMC): "Une lecture nord-africaine du cinéma de Tarek Saleh"

11:00-11:30 Omar Idtnaine (independent researcher): "Du VHS au numérique: la matérialité des films amazighs et ses implications historiques"

12h00-12h30 Saïd Adel (EHESS, Paris) "Amateur cinema and audiovisual transcription of popular memory in Kabylia from the 2000s"

12h30-13h00 Samia Charkioui (Université Jean-Jaurès, Toulouse): "Reassembling memory in cinema: from Ali Essafi to Ahmed Bouanani)"

Lunch break

Panel 6. The cinema of the leaden years: memories and the politics of reconciliation?

Moderator: Menel Zeggar

14:00-14:30 Mustapha El Adak (University of Oujda): "History in Rifa documentary and fiction film: why and what representation?"

14:30-15:00 Cherif Ghezlaoui (Université Côte d'Azur): "Algeria, 1990s: images of an internal war. Représentations filmiques sous le prisme du clivage 'éradicateurs-réconciliateurs'".

15h00-15h30 Mohammed Ballouki (Faculté poly-disciplinaire, Ouarzazate): "Expérimentation et réception du cinéma politique au Maroc : entre reconstruction de la mémoire politique et contraintes de réception et de distribution"

15h30-16h00 Pause

Panel 7. Political and historical readings of North African societies through the prism of cinema

Moderator: Said Adel

16:00-16:30 Nada Mouawad (Université Saint-Joseph): "De l'écrit à l'écran : Le pain nu entre mémoire autobiographique et représentation filmique"

16h30-17h00 Sihem Sidaoui (Université de La Manouba, Tunis) : "De l'histoire locale à l'histoire universelle. Reading the films of Tariq Taguia"

17:00-17:30 Sirine Pons (École nationale des Chartes, Paris): "Les cinémathèques au Maghreb : agents de l'écriture d'une histoire du cinéma (années 1950-1960)"

17:30-17:45 General discussion