Arts Division
PhD Candidate
Graduate
Film and Digital Media
Born and raised in Morocco, Yasmine Benabdallah is a filmmaker, visual artist, and researcher, whose work explores memory, performance, diaspora, archives, rituals, and time travel. Her work is experiential and grows through wandering and listening to bodies and spaces. It is rooted in our histories, how our bodies are bound together and to lands and oceans through rituals, and how we take care. Her experimentations expand through conversations with friends, whether they are at that time collaborating on a project or providing support for each other’s.
Her films and installations have been shown in Morocco, France, Egypt, Canada, Palestine, Tunisia, Germany, Lebanon, Portugal, the US, the UK, and the UAE, where “How to reverse a spell: the promise of an archive” won the Sharjah Art Foundation Best Experimental Short award. Yasmine has done residencies in Palestine, Morocco, France, Portugal, and Tunisia, where “Chebba” received the Cinephilia Best Screenplay Award at the Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage (JCC).
Her writing has been published in MAI: peer-reviewed journal on Feminism & Visual Culture, African Studies Review, Klima Magazine, Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival 2020 Catalogue, Middle East Eye, divine zine, and HuffPost Maghreb.
Yasmine has a BA in Film and Mathematics from Columbia University and an MA from the Experimental Programme in Political Arts at Sciences Po Paris (SPEAP). In the PhD, she explores the intersection of decolonial moving-image making, rituals, and archives. Her dissertation project is temporarily titled “‘The one with the manes’: Relating archives, rituality, and ocean worldviews through decolonial moving-image practices and translocal conversations in Morocco and Brazil.”
2024
- Coha-Gunderson Prize in Speculative Futures, UC Santa Cruz
- Ken Corday FDM Endowment GROW, UC Santa Cruz
- Arts Dean’s Fund for Excellence and Equity, UC Santa Cruz
- Florence French Fund for Art, UC Santa Cruz
2023
- Arts Dean’s Fund for Excellence and Equity, UC Santa Cruz
- Florence French Fund for Art, UC Santa Cruz
2022
- "How to reverse a spell: the promise of an archive," Best Experimental Short Film, Sharjah Film Platform, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE
- Aide à la création et production audiovisuelle, Institut Français, Morocco/France
2021
- University of California Regents Fellowship, UC Santa Cruz
- Fonds Images de la diversité, CNC, France
2020
- Dicréam, CNC, France
2019
- "Chebba," Cinephilia Best Screenplay Award, Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage, Tunisia
2015
- Independent Research Fellowship, Columbia University Scholars Program
2024
- “Beyond The Seventh Gate: Contemporary Moroccan artists’ moving image,” Glasgow Short Film Festival, Scotland
2023
- Network of Alternative Arab Screens (NAAS) and Sharjah Film Circulation Initiative: Tyro Art, Tyre, Lebanon; Fédération tunisienne des ciné-clubs, Tunisia; Cairo Animation School, Egypt; Yabous Cultural Centre - Al Quds Cinema, Jerusalem, Palestine
- Video night, Le Cube Independent Art Room, Rabat, Morocco
- “Make History: Filed and Concealed,” Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, UAE
2022
- United Screens, Wekalet Behna / SAVVY Contemporary, Alexandria, Egypt
- Sharjah Film Platform, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE
- MENA Film Festival, Vancouver, Canada
- “Objets-Relais” exhibition, Collectif romantique, Maison des Métallos, Paris, France
- “Mistela,” collective exhibition, Prisma Estúdio Lisboa, Portugal
- Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest, London, UK
- documenta 15, Kassel, Germany
- “ڭمطتك messages so full of love and rage,” Al Mahal, British Council Morocco, London, UK
2019
- Haifa Independent Film Festival, Palestine
- Cairo International Short Film Festival, Cairo, Egypt
2018
- “Ojalá: la vuelta al origen,” screening, Columbia University Paris Global Center, France
- “The Embodied Border: Words for Political Fiction” exhibition, MYST collective, Columbia University Paris Global Center, France
- “Su gente, su cielo, su aroma,” “On the road,” French German Cultural Center in Ramallah, Palestine
2016
- Alexandria Mediterranean Countries Film Festival, Egypt
2024
- Show and Tell: “With and Against the Archive: Building a Decolonial Collective in Morocco,” Global Audiovisual Archiving Conference (co-organized by Toronto International Film Festival, Eye Filmmuseum, and Archive/Counter-Archive), Toronto, Canada
- Screening and Panel: “Knowing and Naming Ghosts: Global Perspectives on Loss as a Site of Knowledge,” Screening Scholarship Media Festival, University of Pennsylvania, USA
- Guest Speaker: “Arab feminisms and archives,” Modern Arab Thought, HIS 156B, UC Santa Cruz
2023
- Panels: “Arts Career Exploration,” Institute of the Arts and Sciences (IAS), UC Santa Cruz
- Guest Speaker: “Creative Writing in the Academy,” Introduction to Creative Writing, LIT 90, UC Santa Cruz
- Panel: “Moving Toward Expanded Care,” The Politics of Care Conference, UC Santa Cruz
- Screening and Panel: “Unfinishable home(comings),” Screening Scholarship Media Festival, University of Pennsylvania, USA
2022
- Panel: “A.MAL Projects: Film Within A Landscape,” MENA Film Festival, Vancouver, Canada
- Talk: “Decolonizing archives,” Decolonizing with Humility and Empathy in Libraries, Archives, and Museums, Centre for Excellence on Empathy, Equity & diversity (CEEED), Canada
- Symposium talk: “Care and opacity: decolonial image-making practices and post?racial impossibilities,” symposium talk, CIVIS International Workshop, Athens, Greece
- Artist talk: “Decolonising archives across communities,” Le 18, documenta 15, Kassel, Germany
- Artist talk: “Decolonial Futures Workshop Series: The Womb Republic - How to Rebirth,” Framer Framed, Netherlands/South Africa
- Podcast: “Decolonizing the Moroccan Archive,” Screen Worlds, SOAS University of London, UK
2021
- Artist talk: “Yasmine Benabdallah on Filmmaking, Memory, and Ritual,” Agar Red Gold, A.MAL collective, Morocco/UK
- Panel discussion: “Grounds for Concern,” Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, UK
- Panel discussion: “Between Reminiscence and Reactivation: a collective reflection,” Sheffield Doc/Fest, UK
- Panel discussion: “Décoloniser les archives : État des lieux sur les collections marocaines,” Ch[a]rita, Le 18, Mahal Art Space, Dar Bellarj, Marrakech, Morocco
- Panel discussion: “Here I stand in front of your silence,” “If a tree falls in a forest,” Untitled curatorial duo, Les rencontres d’Arles, Institut Français
2020
- Panel discussion: “Door to the Sky,” Africa in Motion (AiM) Film Festival, UK
- Panel discussion: “Izza Génini retrospective,” Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, UK
2018
- Interdisciplinary symposium: “The Embodied Border: Words for Political Fiction,” Columbia University Paris Global Center, France
2017
- Panel discussion: “Europe facing populism,” interdisciplinary conference, Columbia University Paris Global Center, France
2024
“Ali Essafi, director. Beyond the Dying of the Light,” African Studies Review
2021
- “The Decolonising Tunisian Woman in Salma Baccar’s ‘Fatma 75’,” MAI: peer-reviewed journal on Feminism & Visual Culture
- “Colonisation : comment nos mémoires sont rappelées un siècle en arrière,” Middle East Eye
2020
- “The Ebb and Flow of Music,” Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival Catalogue
- “emmêlées,” divine zine n°5 - surprise
2019
- “Burying seeds,” Klima Magazine n°2 - Speculations & Extinction
- “Avoir le luxe d’aller autre part, c’est aussi avoir le choix de revenir,” HuffPost Maghreb