As the world is turning right, and xenophobic discourse is taking centre stage, stereotypes and racist rhetorics on different cultures, religions and their constituencies are again coming to the fore.

In Greece, these rhetorics have accentuated from 2014 onwards, when large numbers of persons that fled war, conflict and climate disaster, or were on a quest for better living conditions, arrived at its shores. What has been mainly known as the refugee crisis, is however a condition, that is not new. War,conflict and financial crises have been for eons creating new waves of refugees. The (current) global migrant crisis, is the most tangible manifestation of a trajectory that has been slowly building since colonialism.

The role of culture in sustaining narratives that are based in concepts of equality, hospitality, solidarity and understanding, is now more urgent than ever. For this reason, State of Concept has decided to inaugurate a new program chapter entitled “Xen(i)os” addressing the problematics between the binary of guest-host, in a world that is becoming all the more xenophobic. It will further address the histories of hospitality, care and hosting, in relationship to the multicultural policies that have defined the modern West. The title derives from the concept of “Xenios Zeus” the hospitable god Zeus, but also from the concept of “xenos” (l’etranger, the stranger). We will be looking at otherness from a feminist intersectional perspective, stemming from both the local and the global.

As Greece is defined as part of the “Global South” we will be tracing “South to South” synergies that look into feminist forms of practice of hospitality, solidarity and care. One of the iterations of this trajectory is a new screening program entitled Arab Feminist Films.

Many artists and documentary filmmakers took the opportunity to tell the world about the social and political struggles that peoples of the Arab region have been enduring. The Arab Feminist Films program is a tribute to women from the Arab world.

The Arab Feminist Films – AFF is an initiative of State of Concept, which aims to become a festival staple event in the cultural scene of Athens. With the support of Outset Greece.