Mariam El Ajraoui is a Moroccan-French scholar specializing in the cinemas of the Arab world, which she examines from a decolonial perspective. Her doctoral dissertation, titled Filmic References in Moroccan Cinema: An Aesthetic and Political Practice, presented at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, explores, through the study of filmic citations, the aesthetic and political issues in the formation of a national cinema in a postcolonial context. A co-founder of the research program Contextes et Imaginaires des Cinémas du Monde Arabe (CICMA), Mariam El Ajraoui is also a filmmaker and actress in self-produced films, favoring independence from the film industry, which she nevertheless enjoys observing and analyzing.