After the War

When a conflict breaks out, the world pays attention, then moves on. But what happens after, when the weapons fall silent?

Researchers, filmmakers, anthropologists, and observers of war-torn territories who invent a new life after the horror: these perspectives, testimonies, and investigations allow us to grasp what these territories go through after suffering terrible conflicts. This is the premise of the book collection Les routes de l’après (The Roads After): to continue the stories once the international press has left, and to recount this gray zone that is no longer quite war but not yet peace (a collection created at Actes Sud in partnership with After War in early 2026). Disarming former combatants, searching for the missing, overcoming trauma, living alongside a tormentor, caring for child soldiers, inventing a nation, judging committed crimes, developing a work of memory... These are all manifestations of the same question: how to live again after the horror?

Preview screening of the documentary Filming After Assad (24 minutes, Arte reportage) by Anne Poiret and Arthur Sarradin. An AFTER WAR production.
Discussion between Cécile Boëx, Aline Cateux, and Anne Poiret
Moderated by Françoise Vernet

Syria: Filming After Assad

By Anne Poiret, Arthur Sarradin, Julien Mauranne, Alexandre Cardon, Muaoya Hamoud, Olivier Adelen - ARTE GEIE / After War / Transparences Productions - France 2026

After fourteen years of war and decades of the Assad clan's dictatorship, cinema, like all of Syria, is trying to be reborn.
Filming after Assad means, above all, confronting the ghosts of the past. Former prisoner Eyad Akkari returns to the prison where he was tortured to film a movie alongside those who, like him, experienced hell there. Other directors want to recount the massacres and fractures of the war, bringing a long-forbidden history to the screen.
For their part, the new authorities are betting on the “mousalsalat,” the very popular Ramadan series. They support thousands of people, can bring in foreign currency, and above all, send a message to the entire region: if filming has resumed, it means stability has returned to Syria.
Through filmmakers, actors, producers, and film club organizers, this report tells the story of a cultural industry in full renaissance, but above all of a society seeking how to live with its past. Because behind the cameras, the great questions of post-war Syria are being played out: memory, justice, responsibility, and the possibility of living together again.

With

Cécile Boëx
Cécile Boëx is a teacher-researcher at EHESS. An Arabist, she lived in Damascus for 10 years. Her research explores the links between images and politics in Syria. After her thesis on protest in Syrian cinema, she focused on the uses of video by the different protagonists of the revolt and the conflict (2011-2024). Why and for whom do protesters, activists, and combatants film? What do these images say about the experience of engagement and violence? She is the author of the book Retrouver Damas (collection Les Routes de l’après, Actes Sud 2026)

Aline Cateux
Aline Cateux is an anthropologist, specializing in Bosnia and Herzegovina; her companionship with the country has lasted for almost 30 years. Her work focuses on post-war reconfigurations, modes of collective action, landscapes, and traces of violence. She is the author of the book Mostar, ceci n’est pas une ville (collection Les Routes de l’après, Actes Sud 2026)

Anne Poiret
Anne Poiret is a journalist and filmmaker. For fifteen years, her work has focused on situations of “neither war nor peace,” exploring what happens after armed conflicts. Her films have been awarded two Emmy Awards and the Albert Londres Prize. In 2023, she founded AFTER WAR, an organization whose mission is to improve how the media reports on post-war realities. She develops innovative projects bringing together documentary filmmakers, local reporters in post-conflict countries, and researchers specializing in transition periods, through documentaries, books, and a consortium of journalists. In 2026, she launched the “Les Routes de l’après” collection, which she directs at Actes Sud in partnership with After WAR.

Françoise Vernet
Françoise Vernet is in charge of promoting the Nature, Society, and Essays collections for Actes Sud editions. She moderates and programs more than 50 round tables each year.

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