Connections between France and North Africa have long been shaped by colonialism, nationalism, and economics. This intercultural relationship has also been mediated through the arts. In Muslim Women in French Cinema: Voices of Maghrebi Migrants in France (Liverpool University Press, 2016), Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp, Assistant Professor of French at the University of Rhode Island, examines one population who has often been left out of these cultural formations. Kemp focuses on the representation of first-generation Maghrebi women in France in documentaries, short films, feature films, and telefilms. Her analysis revolves around filmic textual analysis and the production, audience reception, and distribution of these art forms in contemporary French society. Kemp is attuned to filmic genre conventions, narrative structures, and formal techniques that media producers and artists use to both appeal to large mainstream audiences while challenging dominant stereotypes about Muslims. In our conversation we discussed views of North Africans in French society, means for recovering voice in film, the role of religion in French cinema, the mediation of subjects in documentary films, the role of objects in voicing difference, expressing agency of women protagonists, the goals of dialogue and voiceover versus body language or non-verbal communication, and film’s ability to challenge dominant stereotypes in France.

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