Workshop: Dancing with Images and Film: Reassembling Al Alma’ by Jocelyne Saab
This unique course is part of the 2025 Open City Documentary Festival, in collaboration with Braquage and the Jocelyne Saab Association.
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WHAT: A one off, 1 full day practical workshop, part of the Open City Documentary Festival, in collaboration with Braquage and the Jocelyne Saab Association.
WHERE: UCL East, Marshgate Building, 7 Sidings St, London E20 2AE.
WHO: Run by Sebastien Ronceray and Mathilde Rouxel
WHEN: 10 AM – 4 PM, Thursday 8th May 2025.
WHAT YOU GET: A practical, all-day workshop to explore the explore the creative process of Jocelyne Saab, 16mm film, in a new light.
WHO IS IT FOR? The workshop is open to everyone, no prior experience with 16mm necessary.
DEADLINE TO SIGN UP: Please aim to sign up by 24th April.
HOW MUCH: General Price: £15 | Student/Concession: £7
BURSARIES: We are not offering bursaries for this course, but are offering a highly competitive rate.
AGES: 18+
Jocelyne Saab was a French-Lebanese filmmaker best known for her documentaries about the Lebanese Civil War. She is considered a pioneer of Arab cinema and built a monumental body of work comprising 47 films and six photographic series. Primarily produced for television, her documentaries were, before her death on January 7, 2019, best known to the Lebanese diaspora, who had access to her films broadcast on television during the war.
Of all of Jocelyne Saab’s work shot on 16mm film, only one film exists in both its raw footage and outtakes, preserved by the filmmaker herself in her home for thirty years. Al’Alma’, Belly Dancers is a 1989 documentary made by the Lebanese filmmaker in Egypt. It marks her final documentary shot in the country, where she lived intermittently and witnessed with alarm the rise of fundamentalism in a land that held a special place in her heart for its culture. The raw footage consists of positive and negative 16mm film.
In collaboration with Braquage, an initiative aimed at celebrating film-based practices, the Jocelyne Saab Association offers workshops on these discarded images. The goal is to explore the creative process of Jocelyne Saab in a new light. By working with the physicality of the film stock using dedicated equipment, these workshops aim to rediscover the cinematic gestures of filmmakers who worked with celluloid. They encourage the practice of repurposing techniques, allowing for fresh perspectives on the artist’s work – such as scratching or painting on film, peeling and reassembling the photo-chemical emulsion – following the tradition of experimental cinema. This offers a new way to engage with the outtakes that were set aside by the filmmaker.
“As I see it, the aim of this workshop is to perpetuate not only the images, but also the gestures – the editing gestures, the forms of reflection imposed by the 16mm material. It’s a different way of approaching the work of a filmmaker who worked in the 1970s, in a context of emergency. It’s also a way of reusing images destined for destruction, and working with them as material for experimentation. The workshop is open to beginners and professionals alike.” – Mathilde Rouxel
The workshop is open to everyone, no prior experience with 16mm necessary.
This workshop takes place in the context of the programme Jocelyne Saab’s Egypts, 1976 – 1989 during Open City Documentary Festival 2025. Curated by Elhum Shakerifar and Mathilde Rouxel, this programme of six films made by Saab in Egypt between 1977 and 1989 offers a slant insight into the evolution of Saab’s political perspectives over time, and a novel understanding of her enduring commitment to justice and freedom.
Led by Sébastien Ronceray (Braquage) and Mathilde Rouxel (Jocelyne Saab Association).
Tutors
Sebastien Ronceray
Course Leader
Sébastien Ronceray is co-founder of the Braquage association, set up in 2000, with which he organises experimental films screening (in independent cinemas, institutions, festivals, etc.) and runs awareness-raising workshops. He has been a permanent lecturer in the educational department of La Cinémathèque française for 25 years, in charge of practical and theoretical activities, training and various other activities. He is also a film analyst and publishes in various magazines, catalogues and collective works. Since the late 1990s, Sébastien Ronceray has been developing his work as a filmmaker (experimental films, multi-disciplinary performances, etc.). For these projects, he has worked in independent creative spaces (L'Abominable/Navire Argo laboratories in Paris, Mire in Nantes, LEC in Mexico, Double Négatif in Montreal, etc.). He has initiated performances with artists from dance, music and the visual arts.
Mathilde Rouxel
Course Leader
Mathilde Rouxel, PhD in film studies from the New Sorbonne University, wrote her thesis on the figures of the people in struggle in Arab women's cinema (1967-2020). She has published Jocelyne Saab, la mémoire indomptée (Beirut, Dar an-Nahar, 2015) and co-edited ReFocus: The Films of Jocelyne Saab (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) and Le Livre pour sortir au jour de Jocelyne Saab (Marseille, éditions commune, 2023). Associate researcher at IREMAM-CNRS (Aix-Marseille University), she is artistic director of the Aflam (Marseille) and Noisy-le-Sec Franco-Arab Film Festivals. She co-founded and direct the Association Jocelyne Saab to preserve the work of the Lebanese filmmaker.
