From March 25 to April 12, the Panorama of the Cinemas of the Maghreb and the Middle East (PCMMO) takes over Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis for its 21st edition, which refuses silence. In a media landscape saturated with uniform narratives, the festival asserts its “quiet obstinacy”: to film so as not to disappear.
Contrary to the noise of the world, cinema emerges as a lifeline here. Straddling the capital and its suburbs, the PCMMO is not just another showcase; it is a space of resistance where narratives circulate that dominant screens prefer to ignore.
For two decades, it has examined the political and intimate tremors of Algeria, Palestine, Iran, or Lebanon, through works that are often fragile, sometimes clandestine, but always necessary. Here, the film is not a product, it is a form of expression. A way to stand tall.
Maps of wounds, filming the silences
Since the opening, the tone has been set with “Hijra” by Shahad Ameen. This feminine odyssey in a changing Saudi Arabia questions assigned bodies and invisible inheritances. It is a cinema of restrained tensions that runs through the entire program.
On the other end, the documentary “The Lions by the River Tigris” by Zaradasht Ahmed follows the slow renaissance of Mosul after the hell of Daesh. The camera captures what remains: voices, gestures, fragments of humanity amidst the rubble.
The festival navigates between archives and the burning contemporary issues. With “My Stolen Planet,” Farahnaz Sharifi reconstructs a clandestine Iranian memory, while Kamal Aljafari, in “With Hasan in Gaza,” unearths MiniDV images as ghosts of a territory frozen in time. These films do not just show, they archive the invisible.
Familiar figures and the intimate as a battlefield
This edition is under the joint patronage of two major figures: the Syrian poet and filmmaker Hala Mohammad and the Moroccan director Hakim Belabbes. Two trajectories marked by exile, transmission, and a strong belief in the power of storytelling.
For Hala Mohammad, memory is an open wound, constantly returning to the voices stifled by Syrian prisons. For Belabbes, cinema becomes an intimate gesture, an attempt to piece together a shattered identity between Chicago and Morocco.
At the heart of the selection, one constant remains: the intimate is the most radical entry point to the political. In “Seuls les rebelles,” Danielle Arbid films an improbable love story in a Lebanon on the brink of total collapse.
In “A voix basse,” Leyla Bouzid explores family secrets and hindered identities. Even adolescent stories like “Cotton Queen” by Suzannah Mirghani or “Têtes brûlées” by Maja Ajmia Zellama become battlegrounds, between colonial heritage, mourning, and fierce desire for emancipation.
A necessary political space
More than just a festival, the PCMMO claims its role as a mediator. Through its screenings, meetings, and performances, everything is designed as a platform for the circulation of voices. Cinema converses with poetry and music to expand horizons and break down barriers.
At a time when dominant narratives saturate space, the Panorama reminds us of a saving truth: filming is already resistance. And for us, the audience, watching is perhaps finally starting to understand.
