Mauvaise Langue

Territoires cinématographiques is a dialogue between live performance and cinema, devised in collaboration with Utopia cinemas in Avignon. It’s a daily programme of film screenings, after which the public meet and talk with theatre artists, choreographers, filmmakers, activists, critics and journalists invited to the Festival d’Avignon. This space explores the intimate relationships that these guests maintain between disciplines and with the world. It’s a place to take a broader look at the themes brought to the stage, the territories of the guest language and by the Café des idées. 

Mauvaise Langue

Nabil Wakim // Lebanon, France // documentary // 2024 // 52 min // Original version with French subtitles

The Arabic-speaking community in France is the one that transmits its language of origin the least. Although Arabic is the country's second most widely spoken language, with between 3 and 4 million speakers, it is taught in only 3% of secondary schools, less than Russian and Chinese. Why don't the children of immigrants from Arab countries speak their parents' language? Why are so many French people of Arab origin ashamed of their mother tongue? Why does every political debate on the teaching of Arabic in republican schools turn into a fistfight? Why is Arabic considered a taboo?

Screening followed by a discussion with Nabil Wakim.
Moderated by Marjorie Bertin, journalist at RFI and Le Courrier de l'Atlas.