The event will be presented by Eduardo López Busquets, the General Director of Casa Árabe, and will include attendance by representatives of the Cervantes Institute, the Filmoteca Española, the Cines del Sur Film Festival, and the Cordoba African Film Festival, as well as others.

This conference by Viola Shafik will allow us to get an overview of the essential films in the history of Arab cinema, which Alberto Elena worked so hard to increase awareness about. This talk will make it possible to get a closer look at the changes in the film industry in these countries and their ideological and aesthetic features, from the colonial era up to the modern day.

Viola Shafik is an independent filmmaker, audiovisual curator and cinema scholar. She has written essential texts on the history of Arab cinema, including Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity (AUC-Press, Cairo, 1998) and Popular Egyptian Cinema: Gender, Class and Nation (AUC-Press, 2007).  She has taught Filmmaking at the American University in Cairo and at the University of Zurich. Amongst the many educational initiatives, film festivals and institutions with which she has cooperated as an advisor and consultant, the most notable include the Documentary Campus, the al-Rawi Screenwriters Lab, the Venice Biennale and Dubai Film Connection. She is also a member of the Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) selection committee. She has directed several documentaries, the most notable of which include Shajarat al-laymun (The Lemon Tree, 1993), Musim zar al-banat (The Sowing of Girls, 1999), Die Reise der Köning Teje (A Queen’s Journey, 2003), Jannat Ali-Ali im Paradies (My Name Is Not Ali, 2011) and Arij - The Aroma of Revolution (2014).