It is into a cozy universe that Layane Chawaf, from the Arab World Institute in Paris, brings us with the series Regards de femmes, a collection of short films directed by women that she presents at the International Film Festival on the art (FIFA). We come across female realities in Iran, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
It is a universe that forces us to deconstruct prejudices. There we meet the diva Asmahan, a Syrian singer and actress who managed to make a career despite the opposition of her older brother, and who also worked as a spy for the British during the Second World War. We discover how the bag, in an Iran where physical contact is prohibited in public, becomes a relational vector.
“Last year, we organized a day in support of the Iranian people,” explains Layane Chawaf. This day followed the imprisonment of activists who denounced the death of Mahsa Amini, which occurred in September 2022. One of the short films presented by the Arab World Institute, signed by Tara Najd Ahmadi, reveals videos of the demonstrations following this event. In the film, the director, in conversation with a friend, says she hopes that these videos will be preserved from destruction, having already had some 60 hours of films on feminist demonstrations in Iran confiscated.
An Iranian rebellion in motion
“Currently, I think there is a lot less silence in Iran,” says Layane Chawaf. I have many Iranian friends who say that the movement has started and that it will not stop. So I really think they are breaking free. But hey, like any liberation process, it takes a long time, sometimes even a hundred years. » She also adds that women’s cinema is very much alive in the Arab world. “Very recently, at the Oscars, there were two films by Arab women that were selected, a Moroccan film and a Tunisian film. So, women are really present in Arab cinema today. » This is the Tunisian documentary Olfa’s daughters, by Kaouther Ben Hania, on the fate of two young girls who joined the Islamic State group, and The mother of all liesa documentary by Asmae El Moudir, which revolves around the bread riots in Morocco in 1981.
“We must not deceive ourselves,” explains Layane Chawaf. The condition of women in Arab countries is not the same as in the West. » But things are progressing little by little, she believes, mentioning the fact that women can now drive in Saudi Arabia, where it was still prohibited not so long ago. In addition, a film festival, the Red Sea International Film Festival, took off four years ago in Jeddah, by this sea, while the first cinema in the country was built only two years ago previously, in 2018.
Committed women
FIFA is therefore giving pride of place to women this year, by welcoming more than 50% of films signed or co-signed by women. Discussions and conferences focus on female cultural entrepreneurship, and female networking activities are organized.
In addition to carte blanche from the Arab World Institute, a conference is organized on the legacy of Quebec painter Marcelle Ferron. A journey also celebrates the work of video artist Manon Labrecque, who died in 2023. A film, The Nine Lives of Barbara Daneis dedicated to this blues and jazz singer and activist, now 96 years old, who ignited the blues scene in the 1950s and who also campaigned for the defense of human rights and against war from Vietnam.
Finally, Claude Hamel presents the film Blue bear, which focuses on the painter, sculptor, writer, poet and storyteller Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau. This bear, half-virgin, half-sensual, celebrates the beauty of crossbreeding, in an effort to reconcile Quebec with its deep nature.