Call for Films for the next edi­tion of the „Jean Rouch Inter­na­tion­al Festival”

We are pleased to announce the open­ing of the call for films for the 45th edi­tion of the Jean Rouch Inter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­val, which will be held from May 7 to 14, 2026.

Our pur­pose is to reflect the vital­i­ty of social sci­ences research and to give an insight into the diver­si­ty, cre­ativ­i­ty, and orig­i­nal­i­ty of cin­e­mat­ic gen­res and narratives.

Sub­mis­sions are open until Novem­ber 16, 2025

for doc­u­men­tary films com­plet­ed after Novem­ber 17, 2024 (dead­line for the pre­vi­ous call for films).

The entry fee is €10 per film until Octo­ber, 19th then €15 from Octo­ber, 20th.

Please sub­mit your films as soon as possible:
https://filmfreeway.com/JeanRouchInternationalFilmFestival

All mem­bers of the pro­gram­ming com­mit­tee are look­ing for­ward to dis­cov­er­ing your films!

For any infor­ma­tion request, please con­tact: submissionsjeanrouchfestival@gmail.com
The last edi­tion of the fes­ti­val on video

For the first time, thanks to the amaz­ing work of Léa Bernard, Célimène Mar­rac­ci, Inga Pet­rosyan, Lisa Rame­court, Noame Toumi­at et Osman Yıl­maz, stu­dents at EHESS, we inter­viewed the film­mak­ers who attend­ed the fes­ti­val in 2025!

Farah Kassem, Ruth Beck­er­mann, Emmanuel Gri­maud, Mat­ti­js van de Port, Cate­ri­na Pasquali­no, Pas­cal Cesaro, Anu­pa­ma Srini­vasan et Anir­ban Dut­ta… They explain how their film was made and give their vision of doc­u­men­tary cinema.

Watch it now on YouTube and on our new Canal U channel!

A project coor­di­nat­ed by:

Béné­dicte Bar­il­lé, Tilou Mar­tin, Gaia Mar­i­ana Rangel Pena­gos, Michel Tabet, Alex­ia Van­hée, Nina Wöhrel

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Call_for_papers poster

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CfP for a pan­el on “Shift­ing states and their his­to­ries in insti­tu­tion­al care”
Anthrostate con­fer­ence “Shift­ing States”
22–24 Octo­ber, 2025
Ams­ter­dam, Netherlands 

✨No reg­is­tra­tion fee, in-per­son only. (EASA net­work on Anthro­polo­gies of the State conference)

If the pan­el abstract below res­onates with your research and you would like to join a bunch of friend­ly peo­ple, please send your abstract to Kris­tine Krause k.krause@uva.nl

The final pan­el includ­ing abstracts need to be sub­mit­ted 11 April, so we would like have your abstract the lat­est 9th April.

Junior and PhD researchers par­tic­u­lar­ly welcome.

Look­ing for­ward to hear­ing from you!

Shift­ing states and their his­to­ries in insti­tu­tion­al care

The anthro­pol­o­gy of the state has long argued that states do not exist as coher­ent units out there but are artic­u­lat­ed in prac­tices, spaces and effects. One of the key spaces in which states have effects on their cit­i­zens are care insti­tu­tions. They respond to cru­cial needs of humans; for instance as places where sick­ness­es are treat­ed and frail bod­ies are tak­en care of. They can also curate major tran­si­tions such as birth and death. Care insti­tu­tions such as hos­pi­tals or nurs­ing homes are places defined by par­tic­u­lar and per­sis­tent forms of inter­ac­tion. These forms – where and how things are done, when and by whom – have often coag­u­lat­ed over time. They are backed up by legit­i­ma­tions which are not easy to ques­tion, because they are part of oth­er non-tan­gi­ble soci­etal insti­tu­tions, such as gen­dered divi­sion of labour, kin­ship and fam­i­ly ide­olo­gies which are spe­cif­ic to his­tor­i­cal­ly grown care and health regimes. These regimes as part of state gov­er­nance can bear traces of pasts such as colo­nial rule, polit­i­cal regimes shifts or spe­cif­ic biopo­lit­i­cal projects of care and con­trol. Insti­tu­tion­al care can also be pro­vid­ed by non-state actors on behalf of the state includ­ing non-prof­it, reli­gious or char­i­ty organ­i­sa­tions but also com­mer­cial or even cor­po­ra­tized actors. The rea­sons why these actors per­form or have tak­en over these tasks, have again their own his­to­ries often relat­ed to shifts in ways of gov­er­nance of wel­fare state regimes.

This pan­el brings togeth­er papers that explore how shift­ing states and their his­to­ries come back resur­face, or take unex­pect­ed forms with­in the spaces and prac­tices of insti­tu­tion­al care. The papers exam­ine how his­tor­i­cal lega­cies shape and haunt care­giv­ing inter­ac­tions, insti­tu­tion­al rou­tines, and the nar­ra­tives and posi­tion­al­i­ties of those involved in these care set­tings. In ask­ing how these pasts are artic­u­lat­ed, linger on or are rep­re­sent­ed in care insti­tu­tions this pan­el under­stands his­to­ry not as some­thing wait­ing to be dis­cov­ered in the back­ground, but as active­ly brought up, mobi­lized and pre­sent­ed in the field or artic­u­lat­ed by the ethno­g­ra­ph­er. The past then becomes “his­to­ry” through prac­tices of actors in the field or through the ana­lyt­i­cal work of the ethno­g­ra­ph­er who iden­ti­fies his­to­ry as an absent pres­ence in the stud­ied sit­u­a­tion or prac­tice. The paper in this pan­el inter­ro­gate the con­sti­tu­tive moments where his­to­ry appears, or is brought up in insti­tu­tion­al care set­tings, ask­ing, which posi­tion­ings, gen­er­a­tional mem­o­ries and nar­ra­tives become artic­u­lat­ed therein.

Orga­nized by the Relo­Care Team & friends from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Amsterdam
(Mar­iusz Sapieha, Matouš Jelínek, Veroni­ka Priel­er, Sha­hana Sid­diqui , Yuan Yan and Kris­tine Krause)

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