Sapienza University of Rome
Nuovo Teatro Ateneo, Sapienza Università di Roma – Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Roma
Film Making in the 'Capital of the Third World': Anticolonial and Feminist Approaches to Cinema in 1960's Algeria
An afternoon of curated film screenings and talks on Third-Worldism, anti-colonial resistance, and feminism in Algeria.
26.05.2025, starting time: 15:30
Organizers of the event:
Fernanda Fischione, Sapienza University of Rome
Julian Volz, Leuphana University Lüneburg
The anticolonial struggles on the three continents Africa, Asia and Latin America in the second half of the 20th century not only challenged the imperialist world order, but the cultural and artistic practices developed within these struggles also broke with the racist and exoticizing representations of colonized peoples that dominated imperialist imaginations. It was especially cinema which played a significant role in the construction of a self-confident image of those who were formerly colonized or who were about to get rid of colonialism.
Algeria’s victorious revolution, which led to independence in 1962, was one of the first heavily medialized anticolonial struggles that developed a distinctive tradition of militant, anticolonial, and internationalist filmmaking. These practices continued and were further developed after independence, when Algeria became one of the centers of the Third World. In the 1960s and the early 1970s, the country hosted a wide range of members of anticolonial movements and organized cultural and political events that became crucial for the movements of the Third World, such as the Festival Panafricain (1969), the 4th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Third World Filmmakers Meeting (both 1973).
This workshop examines the forms in which the Algerian anticolonial cinema was expressed and how it influenced filmmaking in other countries of the Third World. Since militant, anti-colonial cinema is often portrayed as solely focusing on heroic male fighters and therefore of being strongly masculinist, the day will give a special attention to feminist approaches within Third World filmmaking. It reflects on the representation of women in Arab-African contexts and on the intersections between gender, militancy and decolonization. The workshop is equally interested in the international networks of anti-colonial cinema and its connection to filmmaking in the socialist bloc as well as to internationalist groups in the West.
Further Information:
In cooperation with the Project "Transnational Maghreb and the International Prize for Arabic Fiction: Pluralism, inclusiveness, and peaceful coexistence in the contemporary Maghrebi novel" (TRANSECT), funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101027040. https://www.transect.eu