Wednesday 11 November 2020 at 17:00 – Online presentation of ARABPOP as part of the MedFilm Festival “Readings from the Mediterranean” session, live streaming from the Festival’s Facebook page.
Participants:
Chiara Comito, co-curator and author,
Anna Gabai, author,
Luce Lacquaniti, author.
Debate moderated by Ada Barbaro, professor of Arabic literature at Sapienza in Rome.
Introduction by Veronica Flora, MedFilm Festival
In Italy, the so-called Arab Springs of 2011 have often been analyzed by commentators and journalists only as unexpected outbursts of violence or as the result of power games between Western states. The short-sightedness of a thought flattened on Islamophobic positions prevented us from really knowing who went down to the squares of Tunis, Cairo or Damascus: a young generation that asked for freedom, calling into question political, religious and gender affiliations. This spirit of freedom has been collected and elaborated by Arab intellectuals, artists and writers who in the cinema, on the walls of their cities, in novels, poems and songs have told the genesis and the consequences of the protest movements. The contributions of this volume intend to give credit to this incredible cultural season, and to make the Italian public aware of the literature, music, films, artistic and theatrical works born from this period of revolt.
“I believe that revolutions must not lie in order not to lose their credibility. I think they must collect the statements of witnesses, in which details are intertwined that tell of the pain, the assault on the cities, the open fire without restraint on the demonstrators. […] We need truth in times of war, because human life and death are not things to be taken lightly. We need a dose of innocent lie, as in writing, in times of peace and love, to sweeten existence in the face of prevailing cruelty.“
Khaled Khalifa, Syrian writer
Chiara Comito is an Arabist, has a degree in Languages and Relations and Institutions of Asia and Africa. In 2012 he founded Editoriaraba, the main Italian website on contemporary Arabic literature. He has written for several newspapers “Internazionale”, “Vice”, “Arab Media Report”. He works as a geopolitical analyst dealing with the Middle East and collaborates with literary and film festivals, publishing houses, bookshops and libraries to promote Arab culture.
Silvia Moresi is an Arabist and translator, teaches Contemporary Arabic Culture and Literature at the Istituto di Alti Studi SSML Carlo Bo, in Bari. She has translated, for the Jouvence publishing house, the anthology My most beautiful poems (2016) by Nizar Qabbani and the poem collection Eleven Planets (2018) by Mahmud Darwish. Since 2017 she is the author, for “Q Code Magazine”, of the column Atlante Letterario Arabo, translated into French and republished in the magazine “Orient XXI”.
