Altrimenti Inventa addresses the absence, in the collective visual imagination, of North African people who migrated in Italy before the 1990s. By experimenting with different ways of “reacting” to and (re)constructing this absence —in the try of telling stories without images— the film explores, manipulates, and plays with material from Italian archives. Unfolding through recordings of conversations between my father and me, and then between other fathers and their daughters, the film adopts the listening experience of second-generation individuals.
Country
ItalyYear
2025Length
23'
Category
DocumentaryScreenplay
Meriam JarbouaCinematography
ArchivesEditing
Stefano CarcereriSound
Rachele De SalvoProduction
Fondazione Archivio Audivisivo del Movimento Operaio e Democratico - AAMODAcademic and educational context in which the short film was developped
Premio Zavattini ed. 2024/2025Synopsis
Biography
After completing her studies in Philosophy, Meriam Jarboua focused on documentary cinema, cultivating an interest in participatory video and in the reuse of archival material. At the same time, she partecipated in visual arts projects related to postcolonial and decolonial studies, as well as to diasporic identities and people on the move. In 2024 a project of her, that ended up in Otherwise invent, was selected by Premio Zavattini, curated by AAMOD. Jarboua is currently studying direction at Zelig School of Documentary Cinema in Bolzano, constantly seeking a way to combine a desire for artistic expression with a commitment to political activism.
Statement
Starting from the consideration that the visual imaginary each of us carries within is not a neutral space, nor is it immune to the logics by which things are viewed and subsequently preserved, I believe in the practice of finding or developing counter-narratives and alternative narratives that in some way attempt to reframe and challenge collective memory and collective imaginary.
— Meriam Jarboua
Archival materials
AAMOD
Home Movies
Istituto Luce
Teche Rai.
