Working with What Is There gathers contributors to present alternative approaches to cinema history informed by non-film sources. It invites to think and create with films as mutable objects of circulation between people, across generations and media, irrespective of their material survival as film copies.

With a considerable part of the SWANA region’s film heritage consisting of films that are lost, destroyed, looted, unarchived or inaccessible, that remained incomplete or unmade, non-film sources are essential material for research that intervenes in these absences. Combining a symposium, screenings, and talks across various institutions, Working with What Is There is guided by the realisation that such research is not only taking place within film studies. It involves various disciplines, including publishing, artistic and curatorial practice.

A development of the pragmatic claim “working with what is there” into a transdisciplinary reflection on method entails a critical assessment of the practical challenges encountered: How do we know what is there? Where do we find our sources? What are the conditions of identification, preservation, and accessibility of specific sources in their respective localities? How to recirculate and activate non-film sources? In which formats, spaces, and for whom?

Beirut, 21–24 October 2026

Contributions by Abboudi Bou Jaoude (Al-Furat Publishing, Beirut), Morgan Corriou (Paris 8 University), Martine Derain (Éditions commune, Marseille), Kay Dickinson (University of Glasgow), Ghenwa Hayek (University of Chicago), Tamara Maatouk (American University in Cairo), Samira Makki (independent, Beirut), Léa Morin (Talitha, Rennes), Chantal Partamian (independent, Montréal), Viviane Saglier (Saint Andrews University), Hady Zaccak (Saint Joseph University of Beirut)

Co-organized by Anaïs Farine (American University of Beirut) and Philip Widmann (University of Zurich), in cooperation with Orient-Institut Beirut, University of Zurich, American University of Beirut, Saint Joseph University Beirut, Metropolis Cinema, Arab Image Foundation

Supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), Bobst-AUB Collaborative Initiative, the Finnish Institute in the Middle East (FIME)

Program and more information