Une histoire du cinéma français. Héritages maghrébins

Palais de la Porte Dorée

For more than sixty years, French cinema has been transformed under the impetus of filmmakers, actors and actresses from Maghrebi immigration. Their works have introduced new narratives, new faces and new forms, redefining the imaginaries of the seventh art. The exhibition Une nouvelle histoire du cinéma Français traces this history by shining a light on those who have contributed to shaping, and continue to shape, French cinema. Directors, from the pioneer Ali Ghanem to Mehdi Charef, Rachid Bouchareb, Hafsia Herzi and Lina Soualem, as well as actors such as Jamel Debbouze, Rachida Brakni, Roschdy Zem and Sami Bouajila, have contributed to shaping a singular cultural history. Their journeys, between France and the Maghreb, have helped to redefine, generation after generation, the imaginaries of French cinema. Their films, often pioneering, opened the way to unprecedented narratives, blending the experience of exile, the quest for identity and a renewal of cinematic forms. Rather than focusing on figures of immigration as they have been represented on screen, Une nouvelle histoire du cinéma français chooses to take the side of the artists who, since the 1960s, have written large portions of the history of French cinema without this history ever having been told. Through film excerpts, posters, on-set photographs, storyboards, iconic cinema objects such as Césars, as well as press archives, Une nouvelle histoire du cinéma français offers a concrete and sensitive journey through this history. The exhibition brings into dialogue widely recognized works and others more rarely shown, sometimes restored or digitized for the occasion. The exhibition closes on a sequence turned towards the future: the emergence of genre cinema, the importance of women, formal freedom, boldness in storytelling, and the rise of new voices circulating between the two shores.

Source: Paris Open Data ↗