BETWEEN MOURNING AND STRUGGLE, WHERE DO WE GO NOW? DIALOGICAL INTERACTION FOR RESPONSIBLE ACT IN RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY

Abstract

Amidst a sociocultural landscape marked by historical tensions between different religious beliefs and practices, cinema emerges as a space for resistance and intercultural dialogue. This article analyzes the film Where Do We Go Now? (Et Maintenant, on va où?, 2011), directed by Nadine Labaki, investigating how cinematic narrative constructs an ethical and aesthetic dialogue between life and art by addressing religious intolerance in a Lebanese village. The research, qualitative and interpretative in nature (Bortoni-Ricardo, 2008; Minayo, 2001; Silveira; Córdova, 2009), is grounded in the Dialogic Theory of Language (DLT), according to the Bakhtin Circle, and mobilizes the concepts of art as an immanently social reality (Voloshinov, 2019 [1926]) and as a responsible act (Bakhtin, 2017 [1920-1924]). Understood as a discursive genre and ideological production, cinema is analyzed here for its capacity to articulate meanings about coexistence, faith, and otherness. Thus, Labaki's narrative reveals how the women of the community, protagonists of the story, convert grief into struggle through creative and supportive actions that destabilize the cycle of violence and reaffirm the power of mediation and listening within religious diversity. The results indicate that the film, by integrating humor and tragedy, provokes reflection on the ethical responsibility of the subject toward the other, reaffirming cinema as a dialogical space of resistance and social transformation.