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Cultural encounter: a view from both shores

January 27, 2015Starts at 12:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). Starts at 12:00 p.m. Free entrance until capacity is reached

Casa Árabe and the Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco in Spain have organized a day of conferences and the screening of a film 
 

The purpose of this day is to create a space for Morocco and Spain to exchange ideas and experiences, where they can share an outlook on the future that strengthens the ties between the two countries.

Starting at noon on Tuesday, January 27, various events will be held at the Casa Árabe Auditorium. First there will be two conferences, one given by Lamia Radi, Director of Cooperation and Cultural Action at the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, and another by Mohamed Dahiri, a professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Then we will be screening the film Adiós Carmen (Goodbye, Carmen) by Moroccan director Mohamed Amin Benamraoui, in the original Berber language version with subtitles in English, after which a performance will be given by well-known musician Hakim.


12:00 p.m.
Presentation of the cultural day Given by Eduardo López Busquets, General Director of Casa Árabe.

Conference: “Dialogue of Cultures, Cultural and Religious Diversity,” by Lamia Radi, Director of Cooperation and Cultural Action at the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. 

5:00 p.m.
Conference: “History of Two People Who Complement Each Other,” given by Mohamed Dahiri, a professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

7:00 p.m. FILM
Adios Carmen (Goodbye, Carmen), by Mohamed Amin Benamraoui (Morocco, France, 2013, 103 minutes)
Actors: Amanallah Benjillali, Paulina Galvez, Saïd Marssi, Juan Esterlich. 
In 1975, a ten-year-old boy named Amar is living with his violent uncle in a village in northern Morocco, as he awaits the unlikely return of his mother, who emigrated to Belgium. Amar finds a friend in his neighbor Carmen, a woman exiled from Spain who works as an usher at the town’s cinema. Carmen helps him discover a world he knew nothing about up to then.
The film will be shown in its original Berber language version with subtitles in English.

9:00 p.m. MUSIC
Musical performance by Moroccan singer Hakim. The music by this singer and composer from Casablanca could be defined as an eclectic mixture of pop, flamenco and traditional Arab music.
 
Cultural encounter: a view from both shores
 Lamia Radi 
A doctor of Political Science who earned her degree at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, she also holds a Master’s degree in International Relations and Foreign Action from the Sorbonne University. She is currently the Director of Cooperation and Cultural Action at Morocco’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Secretary of the Ministerial Conference of African States on the Atlantic Shore. She was formerly the Development Director at the Royal Institute of Strategic Studies (IRES) and an advisor on foreign affairs to the Cultural, Scientific and Technical Cooperation Directorate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation (MAEC). From 2005 to 2006, she was a cultural advisor to the Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco in Paris. She was also a technical advisor to the Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Maritime Fishing, having been responsible for International Cooperation from 1998 to 2000. 

During her time as a researcher, the highlights of her work included her time at the Center for Studies on Human and Social Science in Rabat, as an associate researcher on the topic “Elites and political transitions in the Arab world,” and the work which she performed at the Center for Research on Urbanism in the Arab world (URBAMA, Tours) as an associate researcher for the program “The role of emigrants abroad: new entrepreneurs and new role-players in the Arab world’s cities.”

Amongst the honorary distinctions which she has received are the Michel Seurat fellowship, awarded to her in 1996 by the National Scientific Research Center, and in 1994 she received awards from the Seita Foundation and the School of Higher Social Science Studies in Paris.  

Mohammed Dahiri 
Mr. Dahiri holds a PhD in Philosophy and Letters from the University of Seville and bachelor’s degrees in Human and Social Sciences from the Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakesh and Arabic Philology from the University of Granada. He has completed several Master’s courses, in Community Intervention, Management of Diversity, International Migration, Interculturalism, Culture of Peace, Conflict Resolution, Civil Diplomacy and Human Rights, from the Universities of Seville and Granada. He is also an expert on “Migrations, Development and Human Rights” from the University of Bologna and in “Integration of Muslim Minorities in Europe and the United States of America” from the Amherst Institute for Training and Development (Massachusetts).

He has had a lengthy career in research on topics related with immigration, social cohesion and cultural diversity. At present, he is an educator with several professorships and at various universities (UNESCO Professorship for Conflict Resolution at the University of Cordoba and University of Cadiz) and he is an expert consultant of the Euro-Mediterranean Network of Non-governmental Organizations. He has also spent his long professional career in the fields of human rights, immigration and the association movement, especially in Andalusia, which in 2005 led him to be awarded with the First Prize of Andalusia for his work on the “Promotion of Intercultural Dialogue between Spain and the Arab countries.”