A seminar on the representation of immigration voices in cinema was held Friday in Agadir (southern Morocco), as part of the 20th edition of the International Cinema and Migration Festival.
Organized by the Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad and the “Al Moubadara Attakafiya” Association, a seminar brought together filmmakers and researchers from Morocco, France, the United States, Tunisia and Spain, in the part of the Agadir International Film and Migration Festival.
The discussions explored the way in which cinema has shaped and represented the history of immigration, while highlighting the importance of Moroccan cinema in this context.
Immigration, often discussed in cinema, presents itself as a mirror of social and cultural realities. As a major art, cinema actively contributes to the construction of the collective memory of immigration, in particular through the shared perspectives of different societies.
The first round table, entitled “The migrant seen by the other in cinema”, examined the stereotypes, stories and emotions conveyed through films about migrants.
The speakers analyzed how these representations have influenced the perception of the social, cultural and political issues of migration, while highlighting Morocco’s growing awareness of this issue since the 90s, a time when Moroccan cinema began to grasp of this problem.
Furthermore, the work of Charlie Chaplin, with his vision of the “perpetual movement of man”, was cited as a striking example, illustrating the migratory dynamic and the cultural transformations that it engenders.
The second round table, “Self-representation: when migrants tell their own story”, highlighted the evolution towards a reappropriation of the image of migrants on screen.
This phenomenon, where immigrants themselves recount their experiences, has profoundly transformed cinematic narratives, thus redefining social perceptions and identity issues linked to migration.
The discussions also touched on the influence of the 1960s comedy of miscegenation, which addressed the possibility of harmonious cohabitation in a multicultural society.
These works have had a lasting impact on the way in which cinema deals with migratory stories and their impact on collective memory.
In the Moroccan context, this exchange reflects the importance of a cinema which, both local and global, contributes to a more nuanced understanding and a deeper reflection on the realities of immigration.
SL/SF/ac/APA
