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SYMPOSIUM
Reimagining African and Arab Film Memory: Methodologies, Collaborations, Restitutions, and Dialogues
In February 2025, the new Cinémathèque Marocaine was inaugurated, with strengthened statutes and cultural missions, and a renovated venue now open to the public, after many years of painstaking work devoted to the preservation, restoration and promotion of our country’s film archives. This defining moment solidifies Morocco’s role in promoting shared memory and gives real meaning to hosting a FIAF symposium dedicated to African and Arab film heritage in Rabat. African and Arab cinemas are historically linked and face many of the same issues related to their preservation and promotion. This is why we propose a symposium topic that encompasses the situations in both Africa and the Arab world, especially since Morocco fully embodies these two identities.
In 2026, the Journées cinématographiques de Carthage (JCC, or Carthage Film Festival), the first African and Arab film festival will celebrate its 60th anniversary, while its twin brother, the Festival Panafricain du Cinéma et de la Télévision de Ouagadougou (FESPACO), created in 1969, will launch its 30th edition in 2027. However, the festivals’ distinguished founders who laid the foundation for a pan-African film memory – Ousmane Sembène, Tahar Chèriaa, Lionel Ngakane, Oumarou Ganda, Gadalla Gubara, Tewfik Saleh, Med Hondo, Mamadou Djim Kola, Ahmed Bouanani, Souleymane Cissé, Omar Amiralay, and women pioneers Sarah Maldoror, Atteyat Al Abnoudy, and Safi Faye – are no longer with us.
African and Arab film heritage, which now comprises thousands of works, needs more than ever increased global attention in order to be better preserved, restored and promoted for the benefit of all humanity. This is why urgent and concrete action is needed to preserve this essential part of the universal cinematic memory and broaden a canon still largely dominated by other traditions.
African and Arab cinemas are among the most diverse, artistically proficient cinemas in the world, spanning experimental and popular forms from many cultures, diasporas and countries. Over the past decade, numerous archive-based initiatives have emerged across the region, led by local film archive practitioners who, despite challenging conditions, have cultivated resilient communities of practice and introduced sustainable, regionally rooted, and alternative models for film preservation in Africa and the Arab world.