Prof Carrie Tarr (Kingston University, London)
This lecture series is organised by the LBI London in cooperation with the Wiener Library.
France has the largest population in Europe of both Jews and Arabs and actor Roschdy Zem’s first film as director tackles the topic of Jewish-Arab relationships against the background of Jewish-Arab hostilities in the Middle East and their repercussions in contemporary France. Mauvaise foi is a comedy that revolves around the consequences of the secular Jewish heroine’s discovery that she is pregnant, and the increasingly problematic decision she and her equally secular Arab-Muslim boyfriend take to keep the baby and tell their not-so-secular families.
Carrie Tarr is Emerita Professor of Film at Kingston University, UK. Her books include Cinema and the Second Sex: Women’s Filmmaking in France in the 1980s and 1990s (2001, with B. Rollet) and Reframing Difference: Beur and banlieue filmmaking in France (2005). She is currently working on the representation of Jews and Arabs in French and Maghrebi cinema(s).
