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Photo courtesy of the Cinémathèque marocaine.

Symposium of the 2026 FIAF Congress

"Reimagining African and Arab Film Memory: Methodologies, Collaborations, Restitutions, and Dialogues"

Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 April 2026

Cinémathèque marocaine, Rabat, Morocco


Call for Papers



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. The 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.

However, the African and Arab film heritage remains among the least well-preserved, disseminated, exhibited and funded, for reasons that are inseparable from decades of colonialism and neo-colonial practices. This symposium seeks to address and redress these historical imbalances by opening a dialogue with practitioners, archivists, researchers and historians working in Africa and the Arab world, with a mutuality that encourages the FIAF community to share, listen, and learn. The symposium invites you to collectively imagine the future of African and Arab film memory in order to reach new horizons, making it a central element of the mission of the FIAF community. 

The symposium will provide an opportunity to discuss practical approaches to topics such as raising public awareness, heritage restitution, and archive infrastructure and its sustainability, while also including the space to reflect on the role of diaspora, access to funding, historiography and education. It will reflect on the state of existing entities and initiatives and examine challenges and opportunities related to management, conservation, location, and ethical issues. It will also address topics related to the legal and moral legacy of the pioneers of African and Arab cinema, the presentation and restoration of their heritage, and how the FIAF community could facilitate and be enriched by greater participation of African and Arab archives, thus working towards a better balance and attempting to overcome existing structural inequalities.

Protection of heritage is not possible without thinking about those who created it. The Scientific Committee wishes to acknowledge that this call for papers comes at a time of great violence and turmoil directly affecting the lives of millions of people in various parts of Africa and the Arab world. These realities, in the present as well as in the past, not only devastate lives but also threaten memory, heritage, and the right of communities to tell their own histories. Film preservation, in this context, is an act of resistance against erasure and a way of sustaining voices that are at risk of being silenced. With this call, we stand in solidarity with those struggling to protect their lives, cultures, and archives, and we hope our community will use this platform to share knowledge, resources, and practices that can strengthen these efforts.


The following questions are proposed by the Scientific Committee as starting points for discussion:

  • What is the state of film heritage and the institutions charged with its preservation in the African continent?
  • What examples of archives and archival projects exist in African and Arab countries, both state-run and independent?
  • What kinds of projects and collaborations are currently ongoing, both regionally and trans-continentally?
  • How can we support ongoing activities that preserve film heritage?
  • How can we convince stakeholders to invest financially in the preservation and promotion of African and its Arab film heritage?
  • How can we support institutions and initiatives that work with fragile archives?
  • How may we imagine the future of sustainable archival practices while critically learning from decades of its theory and practice, reflecting and acknowledging diversity, inequality in resources and inclusion?
  • How can we systematically share available information and information to locate the African film heritage (displaced to non-African countries and archives) and to inform the community about existing ongoing projects?
  • How can the distribution of African and its Arab film heritage be supported locally, regionally, and transcontinentally?

 

The intention is that this symposium is a true moment of active transformation, for the FIAF community and for the future of African and Arab film memory.

Proposals are invited on – but not limited to – the following themes:

  • Archiving in spite of everything: resource challenges and ideas from working with limited resources or fragile set ups
  • Climate challenges
  • Collaborations in the African continent and connection with the Arab world
  • Coloniality/issues of colonization
  • Film heritage curation and education in Africa and Arab countries
  • Film historiography in Africa and Arab countries
  • Film technology in the region (labs, etc.), mapping the practitioners
  • Innovative models of training and film archive education
  • Intellectual property and legal infrastructure for African and Arab film preservation
  • Inter-generational knowledge exchange in Africa and the Arab world/access to film memory and preservation
  • Issues of territorial differences/national properties
  • Making African and Arab heritage visible through archival work methods (e.g. cataloguing, programming)
  • Methods to address ‘brain drain’ and ‘heritage drain’ from migrations of people and film out of Africa and Arab countries to the Global North
  • Money questions: funding film preservation
  • Political or security challenges to institutional sustainability 
  • Propositions in creating better governance to protect the fragility of archival initiatives
  • Reconstructing and restoring films available in multiple versions
  • Restitution in practice
  • Restoration and collaboration with filmmakers and their estate 
  • Shared heritage (within the continent, diaspora context, etc.)
  • Sustainable standards of archival practices
  • Transmission and availability: from archival heritage to contemporary filmmaking in Africa and the Arab world
  • Transparency and accessibility of information regarding film heritage

 

The Scientific Committee welcomes your suggestions for the following presentation formats:

  • Individual contributions

Individual contributions (articles, presentations, etc.) should last between 15 and 20 minutes (including extracts), with strict respect for time limits. Each contributor will share a session with a maximum of three other proposals, with room for collective discussion. To propose an individual contribution, please send us a summary of no more than 300 words, together with a brief professional biography.

  • Pre-constituted panels (roundtables or other formats)

Pre-constituted panels should last 90 minutes (including discussion). For panels, please provide details of the speakers and institutions represented, together with a summary of no more than 300 words. If possible, please also suggest the names of the moderators you would prefer. We invite you to consider inviting partners and colleagues from outside FIAF.

  • Poster Presentations / Lightning Talk (short, 5-7-minute project/case presentation)

Short individual presentations of 5 to 7 minutes to draw attention to projects in progress, aiming at facilitating future collaborations. Priorities will be given for projects on African and Arab film memory, including the diaspora.

  • Other formats not listed above are welcome.

 

Interested parties are invited to submit their proposals by email to 2026symposium@fiafnet.org by 14 December 2025. The proposal must include the full name, the institution (if any), and a short professional biography of the speaker(s), as well as an abstract of the proposed presentation or panel. The Symposium Scientific Committee will announce the final selection of papers on 26 January 2026. 

Presentations may be delivered in any of FIAF's three official languages (English, French, Spanish). Please submit your proposal in one of these three languages and clearly indicate the language of the proposed contribution. We particularly encourage proposals from people working in Africa and Arab countries. People from outside the FIAF network are also invited.

Colleagues from the FIAF community delivering presentations at the Symposium will be able to apply for funding from the Christian Dimitriu Fund for assistance with travel and accommodation costs. Some funding for other Symposium speakers outside of the FIAF network might also be available, in particular for speakers coming from Africa and the Arab world.

 

Members of the Scientific Committee

Cecilia Cenciarelli, Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna (Bologna)

Mohamed Challouf, Association Ciné-Sud Patrimoine (Hergla)

Tamer El Said, Cimatheque - Alternative Film Center (Cairo)

Narjiss Nejjar, Fondation Cinémathèque Marocaine (Rabat)

Arike Oke, British Film Institute (London)

Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst (Berlin)

Léonce Tira, Cinémathèque Africaine de Ouagadougou - FESPACO (Ouagadougou)

Coordination: Lisabona Rahman


For questions or comments, please contact the committee at 2026symposium@fiafnet.org.

You can download the Call of Papers as a PDF file here.