Rites in cinema: between ethnographic description and reinvention of identity

CALL FOR PAPERS

International Colloquium

Rites in Cinema:

between ethnographic description and reinvention of identity

02-03 December 2026

Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines d'Agadir

Call for Papers

Rites for obtaining rain, agrarian rituals, seasonal ceremonies and other practices of invoking the divine occupy a singular place in the history of cinema, situated at the crossroads of ethnographic/anthropological cinema, symbolic fiction and the dynamics of identity reinvention (Colleyn, 2009 ; Grimshaw, 2001). We find several directions in their representation: rituals are filmed as memories of a threatened or idealized rural world, as expressions of a still-operating cosmology, and as aesthetic, narrative or political devices. Filmed rituals question the boundaries between ethnographic description, staging and cultural performativity (Turner, 1969; Bell, 1997).

If all these directions present a narrative and visual challenge for filmmakers who want to evoke the sacred aspect of rites (Letoulat, 2016), we can then ask whether the films follow (or not) Houseman's (2012) perspective, which invites us to understand ritual as a network of relationships, both between participants and with non-human entities (spirits, ancestors, objects, images, words, places, etc.). Be that as it may, the cinematic representation of rituals is part of a tension revealing issues of heritage and self-representation between "modernity and tradition" and "globalization and localization", as well as linguistic marginalization and cultural claims (Merz, 2015; Merolla, Naït Zerad and Ameziane, 2019). These issues run through both international cinema and film production in North Africa in its multilingual expression, in both Arabic and Amazigh, as we can see from the examples of The Unknown Saint (Morocco, 2019, dir. Alaa Eddine Eljem), Adrar n Baya /La montagne de Baya (Algeria, 1997, dir. Azzedine Meddour) and Sat tadanguiwine n Imouran /The Seven Waves of Imouran (Morocco, 2001, dir. Abdellah Dari).

This symposium proposes to explore these issues through analyses of fiction films, with a focus on a comparative and interdisciplinary approach. Some suggested lines of reflection are:

Cinema as a site for the conservation, reconstitution or fossilization of ritual practices.
Film auto-ethnography and the reappropriation of traditions.
Passage from lived rite to represented and claimed rite.
Rain and ritual as symbolic, allegorical or mythical motifs in films.
Exoticization, folklorization and deconstruction of the colonial and postcolonial gaze around the cinematic representation of rites.
Ritual as cinematic narrative device (initiation, crisis, resolution).
Films of ritual loss and rural modernity.

The papers are presented in French.

Submission procedures:

Researchers should send their paper proposals, containing a 300-500-word abstract and a brief bio-bibliographical note, to the following addresses:

View e-mail

Provisional schedule:

Deadline for receipt of paper proposals: extension to 15/05/2026

Notification of acceptances: 15/06/2026

Deadline for receipt of papers: 30/08/2026

The papers will be published in the journal Filigranes (https://journals.imist.ma/index.php/filigranes/)

Conference organizers:

Zohra Makach, Université Ibn Zohr, Agadir

Daniela Merolla, LACNAD, INALCO (Paris)

Abdelâali Talmenssour, Université Ibn Zohr, Agadir

Scientific Committee:

Mohand Anaris, LACNAD, INALCO (Paris).

Aziz Belkaz, FLASH Ait Melloul, Université Ibn Zohr.

Mustapha El Adak, Université Mohamed 1^er, Oujda.

Ahmed El Haddaj, FP Semara, Université Ibn Zohr.

Rochdi El Manira, Université Ibn Zohr, Agadir.

Badreddine El Kacimi, FEG Guelmim, Université Ibn Zohr.

Omar Fertat, Université de Bordeaux-Montaigne.

Brahim Hasnaouy, IRCAM, Rabat.

Zohra Makach, Université Ibn Zohr, Agadir.

Daniela Merolla, LACNAD, INALCO (Paris).

Kamal Naït Zerad, LACNAD, INALCO (Paris).

Abdelkrim Oubella, Université Ibn Zohr, Agadir.

Abdelâali Talmenssour, Université Ibn Zohr, Agadir.

Azelarab Touda, Université Ibn Zohr, Agadir.

Menel Zeggar, LACNAD, INALCO (Paris).

N.B. Transportation and accommodation are the responsibility of participants.

The Organizing Committee covers lunches and coffee breaks only.

Bibliographical references:

Bell, Catherine. 1997. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Colleyn, Jean-Paul (dir). 2009. Jean Rouch: Cinéma et anthropologie. Paris: Cahiers du cinéma, INA.

Grimshaw, Anna. 2001. The Ethnographer's Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Houseman, Michael. 2012. Le rouge e(s)t le noir. Essays on ritual. Presses Universitaires du Mirail, Toulouse.

Letoulat, Alice. 2016. "Episodes rituels dans le cinéma de Pasolini: faire figurer l'invisible. L'exemple de Médée", Cinétrens, n° 1, "Rituel", p. 14-17.

Merolla, Daniela, Naït Zerad, Kamal and Amar Ameziane (sous la dir.).(2019). Les cinémas berbères. From misrecognition to international festivals. Paris: Karthala.

Merz, Johannes. 2015. "Mediating transcendence: Popular film, visuality, and religious experience in West Africa." RIJ Hackett & BF Soares, New media and religious transformafions in Africa, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, pp. 99-115.

Qasbi, Moulay Rachid, Benzaida, Kamal and Boutabssil, Fatima Zahraa. 2024."The Interplay of Sacred and Profane in Moroccan Cinema: Portrayals of Sainthood in The Unknown Saint". International Journal of Social Science and Human Research https://doi.org/10.47191/ijsshr/v7-i04-42

Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago: Aldine.