Rewriting the Self – Cinema as a Laboratory of Becoming

ALFILM CINECLUB is a new participatory strand that complements the festival’s main sections (Selection, Spotlight, and Specials), while remaining in dialogue with its annual artistic vision. With this initiative, the festival seeks to expand beyond screenings by deepening their impact through complementary participatory activities. These foster direct engagement with Arab audiences and their intellectual and affective concerns, while extending their agency beyond passive consumption. In this way, the festival becomes a site of collective intellectual and emotional practice, where spectators become participants, and viewing films becomes an act of shared reflection and self-formation.

Under this rubric, ALFILM presents the workshop Rewriting the Self – Cinema as a Laboratory of Becoming, in collaboration with the NAAS Network of Arab Alternative Screens. The workshop reimagines cinema as a collective practice capable of strengthening Arab diaspora communities in the face of political and social upheavals. It aims to transform spectators into writers and cultural mediators, positioning the festival not only as a site of exhibition, but also as a space for shared intellectual inquiry and imaginative becoming.

Through a preparatory session before the festival and a concluding workshop afterward, participants will take part in an intensive programme combining film analysis, reflections on the history of Arab cinema, and creative-critical writing exercises. The workshop encourages participants to engage deeply with the films screened during the festival. It culminates in the potential publication of original essays or creative texts in Arabic on Malaffat.

In collaboration with Rosa-luxemburg Stiftung.