[ecrea] CFP Spectatorship, audiences and film cultures in MENA region - Strasbourg May 2015

Call for papers

Spectatorship, audiences and film cultures


In the Middle East and North Africa

Université de 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 discussions highlighted existing distribution 
networks, the widespread lack of local and international outlets for 
films from the MENA region as well as the difficulties related to the 
distribution of international films in the countries with limited 
capacity for formal projections. This conference was also an opportunity 
to explore non-commercial circuits, in particular research carried out 
on local cultural centers, cine-clubs and film festivals. The purpose of 
the present conference is to pursue these themes, interrogating the very 
diverse terms and forms of the relationship 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.

While the 2014 conference was devoted exclusively to North Africa and 
the Middle East, the 2015 will be open to papers treating Sub-Saharan 
Africa as well. Indeed, the MENA seminar held at the Université Sorbonne 
nouvelle- Paris 3 in 2013-2014 showed similarities and potentially 
productive comparisons related primarily to the lack of commercial 
distribution, the absence of cinemas, and the development of local 
initiatives meant to bring film projections to the public.

While raising issues of spectatorship, audiences and film cultures in 
specific places and time periods in Africa and the Middle East, we will 
privilege the following 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 shown 
today? What business models are adopted by exhibitors? 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.

a)       Festivals. 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.

b)       New Initiatives. Studies of or reflections on initiatives like 
the Cinéma Numérique Ambulant in West Africa, ATAC or the Route du 
cinéma in Tunisia, the film caravans in Morocco, or the cultural center 
of Zawya in Cairo, etc. Analyses of their audiences.



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

a)       The multiplication of platforms and formats. What can be said 
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?



b)       The forms and effects of piracy. What 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?

CALENDAR:

Deadline for abstracts: 20 January 2014

Notification of participants: 10 February 2015

Please send a 400-word abstract, a short bibliography, and a biography 
to (colloquepublicsmena /at/ gmail.com)

For further information, please contact Patricia Caillé 
((patricia.caille /at/ 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 (Provisional) : Hamid Aidouni (Université 
Abdelmaled Essaadi, Tétouan), Mohammed Bakrim, 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, Elie Yazbek (Université Saint-Joseph, Beyrouth)

This conference is supported by MSH Paris Nord, l’IRCAV (Paris 3), 
L’ACCRA (Université de Strasbourg) , LABSIC (Paris 13).




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