CFP – Morocco in Motion: the Global Reach of Moroccan Cinema

Edinburgh University, Scotland; Fri 26, Sat 27 and Sun 28 October 2018

The Transnational Moroccan Cinema research team invites researchers, critics and filmmakers to submit proposals for an international conference to be held in Edinburgh in October 2018. The conference will develop the issues, themes and debates from our first conference in Marrakech in December 2016. At the first conference, the focus was on the state of Moroccan cinema and the potential transnational connections for Moroccan cinema in terms theory, criticism and practice. This second conference will advance these debates to explore in more detail the real and imagined global reach of Moroccan cinema  – and the transnational connections (not solely those taking place along the postcolonial axis between Morocco and France) that also inform the current state and future direction of ‘Moroccan’ cinema in all its forms.

The conference aims to explore these facets of transnational cinema in the context of ‘Transnational Moroccan Cinema’ – understood here as the production, circulation and reception of films within and beyond Morocco as well as in the Moroccan diaspora across the globe. The conference organisers are interested in papers that constitute new research in either English or French across all areas of ‘Transnational Moroccan Cinema’ but would especially welcome contributions on the following themes:

• Transnational Dialogues: critics, filmmakers and film schools, diaspora
• International co-production into and out of Morocco: regional co-production (across the Maghreb), ‘south-south’ co-productions and co-productions with producers in the north
• Distribution of Moroccan films in both formal and informal distribution networks
• The role of festivals as transnational networks for Moroccan cinema
• Diasporic filmmaking: the Moroccan director as cinéaste de passage
• Theorizing Moroccan cinema beyond the national
• The global reach of genre, aesthetics and stars/performance in Maghrebi cinema
• Transnational cinema and political film: protest and the politics of representation

We invite both individual papers as well as panels (3 to 4 panellists). Abstracts for proposed papers should be 250 words long, and for a panel proposals should include an introductory paragraph on the rationale. We welcome proposals from academics, researchers, critics, filmmakers, film students and industry practitioners. Presentations will be 20 minutes long, and we would also welcome proposals for research papers that would not be delivered orally (e.g. essay films).

Please send proposals to the conference organisers, Florence Martin and Will Higbee (florence.martin@goucher.edu & W.E.Higbee@exeter.ac.uk) by Friday 23 March and acceptances will be sent out by 30 April 2018.

Please find all necessary information on our website: http://moroccancinema.exeter.ac.uk/en/conference-2018/