Voices and Images From the Intercultural Dialogue in the Mediterranean is the project of the Department of the Italian Institute of Oriental Studies (Diso web.uniroma1.it/diso/) dedicated to raising awareness and disseminating the research paths launched, starting from 2014, in collaboration with the MedFilm Festival of Rome (www.medfilmfestival.org) on the themes of intercultural dialogue in the Mediterranean, with the aim of disseminating the results and development prospects to the widest audience.
The project aims to bring to light the benefits of a consolidated collaboration between academic institutions and bodies dedicated to the design and implementation of cultural promotion events, in particular aimed at spreading the culture of dialogue in the area of interest through cinema, academic knowledge and the student workshop experience.
The Voices and Images from Intercultural Dialogue in the Mediterranean project is currently supported by the La Sapienza University “Third Mission” call, aimed at promoting models of sustainability and accountability for local and national development and international planning, in which the universities operate from actors of their own territory, capable of interacting profitably with the productive fabric and with civil society, imagining new trajectories for teaching and, even more, for research.
The project aims to disseminate the results of this experience to the widest possible audience, as well as to expand its products and forms of accessibility, including the preservation of the memory of the Diso-MedFilm laboratories and of the film heritage of the Festival itself, through the establishment of a MedFilm Festival Archive of cinematographic works selected in past editions of the historic Roman Festival, at the Diso Library (web.uniroma1.it/diso/archivionotizie/bibostazione), excellence of the University La Sapienza.
In fact, the cinematographic works, selected and presented to the public annually by the MedFilm Festival in Rome for 25 years, as well as the scientific and educational contributions – written, oral, multimedia – developed ad hoc by the professors and experts of Diso, compose the investigation ground of the project Voices and images from intercultural dialogue in the Mediterranean which aims to highlight the success in terms of sharing knowledge and stimulating research, the result of the consolidated collaboration between the academic institution and the festival reality, in the belief that the dissemination and knowledge of heritage film can open direct and vital access thresholds to the knowledge of peoples and cultures.
Voices and images from intercultural dialogue in the Mediterranean aims to create a multilingual virtual space shared between the main actors and the numerous stakeholders connected to them and will host scientific publications, the agenda of public events that will be organized, an information and exchange space for students who participate every year in the joint activities between the Department and the Festival, as well as a ‘digital window’ on the specialized audiovisual archive to be set up at the media library of the Oriental Studies Library. The contents of the project concern the transversal dialogue with Mediterranean societies, analyzed in the commonalities but also in the differences between countries, generations, communities and confessions. The analyzes aim to reconstruct the problems and conflicts but also the common and specific aspirations and projects of the Mediterranean area, in terms of identity, gender, environment, migration, coexistence between religions, languages and ethnic groups and much more. Our research is aimed at intercultural dialogue between and with the societies of the enlarged Mediterranean – that is, including the non-coastal countries, but culturally connected, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Hungary and Germany – paying attention themes that express both the commonality and the difference between the countries of the Mediterranean area.