FILMIC DIARIES, SOUND DIARIES: INTIMATE AND COLLECTIVE DOCUMENTARY ESSAYS
Beirut
Organization: Saint-Joseph University of Beirut
Call for papers
Regards Journal, Issue 35
Issue editors :
· Robert Bonamy (Professeur des universités - Université de Poitiers – UR 15076 FoReLLIS)
· Aude Fourel (Maîtresse de conférences, Réalisatrice – Université Grenoble Alpes – UMR 5316 Litt&Arts)
· Bahia Bencheikh El Fegoun (Doctorante, Réalisatrice - Université de Poitiers – ED “Humanités” - UR 15076 FoReLLIS)
· Eve Le Fessant Coussonneau (Doctorante, Réalisatrice – Université de Poitiers – ED “Humanités” – UR 15076 FoReLLIS)
FILMIC DIARIES, SOUND DIARIES: INTIMATE AND COLLECTIVE DOCUMENTARY ESSAYS
The "diaries" discussed here may consist of assemblages of filmic and/or sound fragments. They take the form of documentary essays, sometimes personal, and sketch out ideas based on things seen, heard, and experienced. Diaries can resemble either an intimate filmic and/or sound journal or a chronicle, particularly when created within the anti-democratic contexts of the first quarter of the 21st century. However, proposals for collective initiatives in documentary essays are also highly encouraged. The diaries form lies between the spontaneity of lived experience and long-term reflexivity. From a pluralistic perspective, they oscillate between shared momentum, societal assessment, and the importance of preserving collective memory.
For sound diaries, as well as filmic essay diaries, this issue of Regards will pay special attention to works that are genuinely engaged both artistically and politically. Whether individual or group-based, proposals must align with the journal's editorial focus on the diversity of the Middle East, North Africa, and Mediterranean countries. Contributions are not limited to the examples and suggestions mentioned in this call for submissions.
The Diaries as a Form of Documentary Essay
While written diaries are often individual, filmic and sound forms embrace plurality. This is especially true in authoritarian or repressive contexts, where the right to speech and image is controlled by a minority. Consider, for instance, the popular uprisings of the 2010s and their ongoing sociopolitical echoes, which have reignited the question of citizens' self-representation. As members of Bidayyat wrote in their collective's introductory text during the Syrian revolution, "ordinary people found themselves face-to-face with images they had filmed with their own hands." But what collective realities are these diaries meant to represent? From revolt and demands to siege, occupation, and destruction, the spectrum of resistance is vast. At the heart of intensity or the rhythm of daily life, documentary resistance diaries capture presences that defy normalization and indifference. Recording becomes the last possible political gesture, offering a counter-visuality, resisting erasure, affirming presence through images, and demanding visibility to be recognized as full human subjects.
However, we are also interested in proposals that question the dynamics of these vernacular images of daily life. Media transformations and the supposed democratic qualities of new self-narration tools remain to be interrogated. Social media and the internet compel us to rethink the very form of the filmic and sound "diaries," which borders on the virtual journal. For example, the work of the Syrian collective Abounaddara shifts the discourse on missing images and complicates the notion of the right to image for vulnerable individuals by demanding respect for the dignity of victims of the Bashar al-Assad regime. Against the glorification of amateur testimony (images filmed on mobile phones and posted on social media), the collective has championed, since 2011, a representation of Syrian society by itself, in all its complexity.
This research axis around collective approaches invites exploration of both the sustained work of specific collectives, serving as long-term chronicles (e.g., Mosireen in Egypt or the filmmakers of Still Recording in Syria), and composite filmic forms that creatively gather the work of multiple filmmakers (From Ground Zero, a film coordinated by Rashid Masharawi, composed of 22 short films by displaced Palestinian filmmakers in Gaza, or Letters, 17 filmic letters by Lebanese filmmakers assembled by Josef Khallouf). Contributions may engage with historical approaches, studying past collective practices, or focus on ultra-contemporary filmic and sound production, as well as the interplay of temporalities.
In the context of this issue dedicated to documentary diaries, we will also emphasize reflexive approaches and temporal perspectives. While the diaries form often embodies spontaneity and is rooted in the present, it evolves over time and can also reflect in the long term. It may therefore be worthwhile to explore the role of archives, current practices surrounding them, and their retroactive impact when compiling a logbook. The comprehensive work of Subversive Film, a research and film production collective focused on Palestine, exemplifies this by combining preservation, programming, and creation.
Among the most notable examples of "personal" filmic diaries at the forefront of contemporary experimentation is Contre temps (Al nahar howa al layl; 2024, 345 min.). The director, Ghassan Salhab, describes the essayistic dimension of his filmography as "videos," recalling the Latin meaning of the verb video—the first-person singular present indicative of the Latin infinitive videre: "I see." Other possible translations, worth noting, include "I perceive," "I witness," or even "I am contemporary with." Ghassan Salhab's video takes the form of an extensive filmic diaries, entirely shot on a mobile phone. Contre temps serves as a chronicle of five years of Lebanon's political history, beginning on October 17, 2019, with the start of uprisings in the form of popular urban marches and protests (particularly in Beirut and Tripoli), interspersed with struggles against the financial powers that led the country to ruin, the powers of elected political representatives, and patriarchal forces. The film concludes with a moment from November 2023, poetically transcribing a final phone exchange with a friend in Gaza. Contre temps is both individual diaries and an archive of the search for a refractory commonality. The film also dialogues with diaries of photographs and texts titled À contre-jour (depuis Beyrouth), published in 2021.
The diaries forms can also embody clandestinity, emerging in contexts of censorship or through strategies of self-censorship. In the field of filmic documentary, The Silent Majority Speaks by Bani Khoshnoudi is a particularly significant example, transitioning from filmic diaries to a historical fresco. Filmed in Tehran in 2009 during the Green Movement, it was distributed clandestinely under the pseudonym "The Silent Collective" until 2013.
Paths of Sound Documentary
Alongside proposals for articles on filmic essays, this call also welcomes exclusively sound diaries. Among notable works is the radio creation workshop titled Je vous parle de la Syrie by Charlotte Rouault (produced by Irène Omélianenko), with the participation of Benoît Bories (the two artists currently form the collective "Faïdos sonore"). This sound documentary is built from testimonies of Syrian women recounting the personal and collective daily life of war and their involvement in the revolution. The sound diaries, whether a trace of the here and now or a (re)montage of voices or places, prove to be a documentary medium conducive to innovative gestures.
Also noteworthy are the soundscapes of Beirut recorded by Rana Eid over several decades, spanning the civil war, reconstruction, the 2006 war, the 2019 civil revolution, the August 4, 2020, port explosion, and Lebanon's economic collapse. Marine Vlahovic, known for her "correspondent's diaries" (from her work as a correspondent between 2016 and 2019 for Francophone public radios in Palestine), invited Rana Eid to comment on her sound archives in the piece titled Le Souffle de Beyrouth. Une histoire du Liban racontée par le son (2021, Arte Radio). Most recently, with Calling Gaza (2024, Arte Radio) and before her passing in November 2024, Marine Vlahovic completed the epilogue of her correspondent's diaries by compiling thousands of messages and hundreds of hours of rushes, notably from social media to document daily life in Gaza.
For sound creations, this call seeks to avoid privileging normative styles of intimate podcasts while remaining attentive to proposals from younger generations, especially those involving multilingual sound diaries (such as the work conducted by "L’île aux podcasts" with and by young Algerians, for example).
Fragments, Research, Creations
The diaries form is also widely used in research-creation contexts. We therefore welcome contributions from researchers who employ these modalities in film and sound creation. The status of these diaries, beyond being mere preparatory elements, sketches, or creation journals, warrants further exploration.
Responding to institutional commissions (e.g., for the "Où en êtes-vous?" collection at the Centre Pompidou, featuring works by Amir Naderi, Jafar Panahi, or Tariq Teguia) or creating provisional essays—work stages not necessarily meant for public disclosure—filmmakers produce filmic diaries in the sense of test diaries.
Among creation diaries or composite logbooks, partly composed of filmic fragments not intended for the finished film, those published by David Yon on the website Dérives.tv are particularly intriguing. They include annotations and several essays begun during the development of his films Les Oiseaux d’Arabie (2009) and La Nuit et l’Enfant (2015), both centered on the Algerian city of Djelfa, as well as Ne me guéris jamais (2023). Creation thus becomes research; it would be equally fascinating to explore whether such provisional and often highly fragmentary works (which resemble essays more than teasers) are employed by sound documentarians.
The mention of these examples calls to mind many others, potentially similar or markedly different in their approaches. Contributors are also encouraged to discuss, revise, and critique the notion of the diaries as proposed here for film and sound creation.
Submission guidelines
Authors wishing to submit an abstract (in French, English or Arabic) are invited to send it to the following email address: regards@usj.edu.lb, before April 30, 2025
Authors should provide the following information:
An abstract of the article (approx. 500 words)
5-10 keywords
A short, indicative bibliography
A mini biography (approx. 100 words)
The abstracts will be examined by the editorial committee, and the authors will receive an answer before May 15, 2025.
The submission deadline for the final article (approx. 5000 words) is scheduled for September 15, 2025.
Scientific committee
Hamid Aidouni, PR (Université Abdelmalek Essaadi, Maroc)
Karl Akiki, MCF (Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth, Liban)
Riccardo Bocco, PR (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Genève, IHEID, Suisse)
Fabien Boully, MCF (Université Paris Nanterre, France
André Habib, PR (Université de Montréal, Canada)
Dalia Mostafa, MCF (University of Manchester, Angleterre
José Moure, PR (Université Paris Panthéon Sorbonne – Paris 1, France)
Jacqueline Nacache, PR (Université de Paris, France)
Ghada Sayegh, MCF (IESAV, Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth, Liban)
Kirsten Scheid, Associate PR (American University of Beirut, Liban)
Editor-in-chief: Joseph Korkmaz (Professor - Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth)
Bibliography
· Abounaddara Collective, Dignity has never been photographed », sur Documenta14, 24 mars 2017.
· Bidayyat Collective, « Background », s.d.
· Baiblé Claude, Nouel Thierry, Filmer seul·e, Paris, La Revue Documentaires, n° 26-27, 2016.
· Bonamy Robert, Cinéma réfractaire – essais documentaires, Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, de l’incidence éditeur, 2025.
· Brenez Nicole, Khoshnoudi Bani, « Une éthique de la question. Entretien avec Bani Khoshnoudi », paru dans le cadre de l’ensemble « Each Dawn a Censor Dies », sur le site de la Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, en septembre 2016.
· « À bruits secrets (l'artiste iconographe et l'archive : images, documents, sons) », Revue Critique 879-880, « Faire collecte. Archives et création », Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 2020.
· Cassagnau Pascale, Une idée du nord. Une excursion dans la création sonore contemporaine, Beaux-arts de Paris éditions, 2014.
· Chatelet Claire, Savelli Julie, Récits de soi. Le JE(U) à l'écran, Toulouse, revue Entrelacs, n° 15, 2018.
· Dabashi Hamid, Dreams of a nation, London New York, Verso, 2006.
· Delbard Nathalie, « Tordre le cou à l'éloquence. À propos d'Au fil de la révolution d'Abounaddara », Paris, Trafic n°110, POL, juin 2019.
· Gambetti Zeynep, Leticia Sabsay et Judith Butler, Vulnerability in resistance, Durham (N.C.), Duke University Press, 2016.
· Gerts Nurit et George Khleifi, Palestinian Cinema: Landscape, Trauma and Memory, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, coll. « Traditions in World Cinema TWC », 2022.
· Honneth Axel, La lutte pour la reconnaissance, Pierre Rusch (trad.), Paris, Gallimard, coll. « Folio », no 576, 2013.
· Leprince Camille, « Usages du ciné-tract dans le film Demande à ton ombre », revue Regards, n°27, 2022.
· Mirzoeff Nicholas, The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality, Duke University Press, 2011.
· Riboni Ulrike Lune, Vidéoactivismes : contestation audiovisuelle et politisation des images, Paris, Éditions Amsterdam, 2023.
· Salhab Ghassan, à contre-jour (depuis Beyrouth), Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, de l’incidence éditeur, 2021.
· Sayegh Ghada, « La fin du monde a déjà eu lieu », revue hors champ, octobre 2024.
· Sfeir Jihane, « Mémoires vives palestiniennes », dans Christine Jungen, Jihane Sfeir (dir.) Archiver au Moyen-Orient. Fabriques documentaires contemporaines, Paris, Karthala, 2019
· Snowdon Peter, The people are not an image: vernacular video after the Arab Spring, London ; New York, Verso, 2020.
· Snowdon Peter, « The Revolution Will be Uploaded: Vernacular Video and the Arab Spring », Culture Unbound, vol. 6, no 2, 17 avril 2014, p. 401-429
· Yaqub Nadia G., Palestinian cinema in the days of revolution, First ed, Austin, [Texas], University of Texas press, 2018.
· Yon David, « Les Oiseaux d’Arabie, Journal de bord », « La Nuit et L’Enfant, Journal de bord » et « Ne me guéris jamais, Journal de bord », Dérives.tv (www.derives.tv).
Zabunyan Dork, L’insistance des luttes. Images, soulèvements, contre-révolutions, 2e édition augmentée, Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, de l’Incidence éditeur, 2024.
https://journals.usj.edu.lb/regards
Toufic El-Khoury
