RADICAL MODERNISMS: RETRACING ARAB AND NORTH AFRICAN FILM HISTORIES is a two-part program curated by Peter Limbrick, Professor of Film and Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz and author of Arab Modernism as World Cinema: The Films of Moumen Smihi.
This program addresses aesthetic and cultural experiments that emerged in Arab and North African cinema from the 1960s, experiments that showed filmmakers and artists responding to histories of colonialism and the challenges of the present. Drawing on local vernaculars and international influences alike, these filmmakers created radical forms that deserve continued attention and discussion as well as urgent efforts of preservation and recirculation.
Retracing Arab and North African Film Histories (Part 2): The films included in the package are rare and vital treasures of Moroccan and diasporic Maghrebi filmmaking. We are proud to present the recently restored Ali in Wonderland (1976), a stunning film about Maghrebi migration and life in France that resonates with Moumen Smihi’s earlier film on this topic in Part One of our program. Also included is a rarely-seen film by the Moroccan filmmaker Ahmed Bouanani: the radical archival essay film Memory 14 (1971) which turns to the French colonial archive to create a searing and poetic essay on Moroccan history. The program also includes another recent restoration: the feature film About Some Meaningless Events (1974), directed by Mostafa Derkaoui, which is recirculating decades after it was first banned in Morocco. Together these films offer audiences an exciting exploration of the fragile and often overlooked cinematic legacy of Morocco and the Maghreb.
Film Screening
Memory 14 (Mémoire 14), Ahmed Bouanani, Morocco, 1968, 24 min
About Some Meaningless Events (De quelques évènements sans signification), Mostafa Derkaoui, Morocco, 1974, 76 min
Ali in Wonderland (Ali au pays des merveilles), Djouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy, France, 1976, 59 min
Panel Discussion Cinematic Archives, Preservation, and Circulation in the Maghreb.
The screening is accompanied by a panel discussion addressing the question of archives and the urgent demands of preservation and recirculation of work that is at risk of disappearance.
This program is co-sponsored by the Center for the Middle East and North Africa at UC Santa Cruz
Radical Modernisms: Retracing Arab and North African Film Histories was presented as part of the ArteEast legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, preserving and presenting over 17 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.
Ali in Wonderland
Ali in Wonderland is a radical, experimental, and politically astute essay on the condition of Maghrebi immigrant workers in France in the 1970s. Recently digitized and restored in 4k by l’Image Retrouvée from the original 16mm negatives and an exhibition print, the film’s images were (in the words of its filmmakers) “filmed like blows of the fist” against the system of exploitation and domination under which immigrant workers suffered. Abouda and Bonnamy’s film, with remarkable kinetic images and editing and a soundtrack by Algerian musician Djamel Allam, was made under the auspices of the Centre Universitaire de Vincennes, a leftist experimental educational institution formed after May 1968, and has been seldom seen outside alternative cinema networks. ArteEast’s screening of the film marks its US premiere and offers a dialogue with the curator and researcher who initiated its restoration, Léa Morin.
About the filmmakers
Djouhra Abouda was born in Algeria in 1949 and educated in France. With Alain Bonnamy, she directed two experimental shorts: Algérie Couleurs (1972) and Ciné-Cité (1974). Their third film, Ali in Wonderland, was made under the auspices of the Centre Universitaire de Vincennes. After this film, both directors moved away from cinema towards other artistic modes of expression. Djouhra Abouda is now recognized by the name Djura, after founding the Kabyle-language musical group DjurDjura in 1979. Alain Bonnamy is an architect and photographer.
- Year1976
- Runtime59 minutes
- CountryFrance
- DirectorDjouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy
- EditorNadia Fassil
- MusicDjamel Allam
RADICAL MODERNISMS: RETRACING ARAB AND NORTH AFRICAN FILM HISTORIES is a two-part program curated by Peter Limbrick, Professor of Film and Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz and author of Arab Modernism as World Cinema: The Films of Moumen Smihi.
This program addresses aesthetic and cultural experiments that emerged in Arab and North African cinema from the 1960s, experiments that showed filmmakers and artists responding to histories of colonialism and the challenges of the present. Drawing on local vernaculars and international influences alike, these filmmakers created radical forms that deserve continued attention and discussion as well as urgent efforts of preservation and recirculation.
Retracing Arab and North African Film Histories (Part 2): The films included in the package are rare and vital treasures of Moroccan and diasporic Maghrebi filmmaking. We are proud to present the recently restored Ali in Wonderland (1976), a stunning film about Maghrebi migration and life in France that resonates with Moumen Smihi’s earlier film on this topic in Part One of our program. Also included is a rarely-seen film by the Moroccan filmmaker Ahmed Bouanani: the radical archival essay film Memory 14 (1971) which turns to the French colonial archive to create a searing and poetic essay on Moroccan history. The program also includes another recent restoration: the feature film About Some Meaningless Events (1974), directed by Mostafa Derkaoui, which is recirculating decades after it was first banned in Morocco. Together these films offer audiences an exciting exploration of the fragile and often overlooked cinematic legacy of Morocco and the Maghreb.
Film Screening
Memory 14 (Mémoire 14), Ahmed Bouanani, Morocco, 1968, 24 min
About Some Meaningless Events (De quelques évènements sans signification), Mostafa Derkaoui, Morocco, 1974, 76 min
Ali in Wonderland (Ali au pays des merveilles), Djouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy, France, 1976, 59 min
Panel Discussion Cinematic Archives, Preservation, and Circulation in the Maghreb.
The screening is accompanied by a panel discussion addressing the question of archives and the urgent demands of preservation and recirculation of work that is at risk of disappearance.
This program is co-sponsored by the Center for the Middle East and North Africa at UC Santa Cruz
Radical Modernisms: Retracing Arab and North African Film Histories was presented as part of the ArteEast legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, preserving and presenting over 17 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.
Ali in Wonderland
Ali in Wonderland is a radical, experimental, and politically astute essay on the condition of Maghrebi immigrant workers in France in the 1970s. Recently digitized and restored in 4k by l’Image Retrouvée from the original 16mm negatives and an exhibition print, the film’s images were (in the words of its filmmakers) “filmed like blows of the fist” against the system of exploitation and domination under which immigrant workers suffered. Abouda and Bonnamy’s film, with remarkable kinetic images and editing and a soundtrack by Algerian musician Djamel Allam, was made under the auspices of the Centre Universitaire de Vincennes, a leftist experimental educational institution formed after May 1968, and has been seldom seen outside alternative cinema networks. ArteEast’s screening of the film marks its US premiere and offers a dialogue with the curator and researcher who initiated its restoration, Léa Morin.
About the filmmakers
Djouhra Abouda was born in Algeria in 1949 and educated in France. With Alain Bonnamy, she directed two experimental shorts: Algérie Couleurs (1972) and Ciné-Cité (1974). Their third film, Ali in Wonderland, was made under the auspices of the Centre Universitaire de Vincennes. After this film, both directors moved away from cinema towards other artistic modes of expression. Djouhra Abouda is now recognized by the name Djura, after founding the Kabyle-language musical group DjurDjura in 1979. Alain Bonnamy is an architect and photographer.
- Year1976
- Runtime59 minutes
- CountryFrance
- DirectorDjouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy
- EditorNadia Fassil
- MusicDjamel Allam