UFR LLASICLanguage, literature, performing arts, information and communication, journalism

"Écoutes plurielles" series presented by Claire Allouche 

In his recent book *Libertés d’écoute: Le son, véhicule de la relation*, sound engineer and researcher Daniel Deshays reflects on what “collective listening” might entail, whether in the appreciation of artistic works or the ambient sounds of our environment. He argues that, by nature, “listening is not a continuous, linear process but a collection of listening experiences assembled in a discontinuous manner.” This new series of the Pourparlers seminar will be an opportunity to work together to listen as best we can, prioritizing resonances in unison. To this end, we will focus our attention on contemporary works (cinematic, literary, sound-based, etc.) that put our ears to the test. By engaging in dialogue each time with a specialist in a discipline and/or an artist, we will explore what active and conscious listening can produce in terms of original aesthetic forms, as well as how it transforms our modes of reception. In this sense, each session will feature a shared listening experience of a unique work, conducted in a specific format. 

The first session, co-organized with Violaine Bigot (LIDILEM), will take the form of a discussion with filmmaker and cinematographer Nurith Aviv.

Nurith Aviv’s Linguistic Visions: Screening and Discussion with Nurith Aviv about Her Documentary *Lettre errante* 

This session will take place in two parts: 
— 4:15 PM: screening of Lettre Errante (2023), free admission
— 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM: conversation with Nurith Aviv  

From *From One Language to Another* (2004), which features a series of spoken reflections on the history of Hebrew, to *First Names* (2026), in which she visits her friends, who tell their stories through their first names, filmmaker Nurith Aviv has built a unique filmography centered on the multiplicity of languages and the socio-political histories they carry. 

In her penultimate feature film, *Lettre Errante* (2024), Nurith Aviv explores the treacherous letter “r.” Its pronunciation varies not only from one language to another but also “within” a single language (regional and social varieties, etc.), thereby exposing multilingual speakers. For this film, Nurith Aviv met with six people whose profiles differ notably in their linguistic repertoires (Japanese, Haitian Creole, Russian, Hebrew, Swedish, Persian…) and their professional activities (teaching, writing, playwriting, translation, psychotherapy…). Beyond this diversity, each person testifies to the special place the R phoneme has occupied in their linguistic imagination and in their construction of identity.

The screening of *Lettre Errante* (free admission) will be followed by a conversation with Nurith Aviv about the multilingual listening that gives rise to—and is in turn shaped by—her work. How does the filmmaker manage to help the people she films listen to their own multilingual journeys? What listening processes preceded those captured in the final edited sequences? How does Nurith Aviv prepare the people she films to construct narratives drawn from their linguistic biographies, facing the camera, even though she sometimes does not speak their language? For *Lettre errante*, from one filmed encounter to the next, how did the filmmaker’s perception of the letter R evolve? How did this evolution in listening guide the editing process to shape the film’s polyphonic power?

This “Pourparlers” session is organized with financial support from the UFR LLASIC (Department of Performing Arts, Master’s in Artistic Creation [Film Studies track]) and the Department of Linguistics (Master’s in Linguistics).