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Documentary Filmmaking in the Middle East and North Africa
Edited by Viola Shafik
514 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in, 55 b&w photos
- Hardback
- 9789774169588
- October 2022
- Region: Worldwide
LE800.00
$59.95
£45.00
- EPUB
- 9781649030351
- October 2022
- Region: Worldwide
$58.99
- 9781649030368
- October 2022
- Region: Worldwide
$58.99
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A comprehensive, in-depth study of Arab documentary filmmaking by leading experts in the field
While many of the Arab documentary films that emerged after the digital turn in the 1990s have been the subject of close scholarly and media attention, far less well studied is the immense wealth of Arab documentaries produced during the celluloid era. These ranged from newsreels to information, propaganda, and educational films, travelogues, as well as more radical, artistic formats, such as direct cinema and film essays. This book sets out to examine the long history of Arab nonfiction filmmaking in the Middle East and North Africa across a range of national trajectories and documentary styles, from the early twentieth century to the present.
Bringing together a distinguished group of film scholars, practitioners, and critics, Documentary Filmmaking in the Middle East and North Africa traces the historical development of documentary filmmaking with an eye to the widely varied socio-political, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural contexts in which the films emerged. Thematically, the contributions provide insights into a whole range of relevant issues, both theoretical and historical, such as structural development and state intervention, formats and aesthetics, new media, politics of representation, auteurs, subjectivity, minority filmmaking, ‘Artivism,’ and revolution. Also unearthing previously unrecognized scholarly work in the field, this rich and theoretically informed collection sheds light on a hitherto neglected part of international film history.
Contributors:
Ali Abudlameer, Hend Alawadhi, Jamal Bahmad, Ahmed Bedjaoui, Dore Bowen, Shohini Chaudhuri, Donatella della Ratta, Yasmin Desouki, Kay Dickinson, Ali Essafi, Nouri Gana, Mohannad Ghawanmeh, Olivier Hadouchi, Ahmad Izzo, Alisa Lebow, Peter Limbrick, Florence Martin, Irit Neidhardt, Stefan Pethke, Mathilde Rouxel, Viviane Saglier, Viola Shafik, Ella Shohat, Mohamad Soueid, Hanan Toukan, Oraib Toukan, Stefanie van der Peer, Nadia Yaqub, Alia Yunis, Hady Zaccak
Contributors
Introduction: Histories of Documentary South and East of the Mediterranean (MENA)
Viola Shafik
Histories and Structures
1. Newsfilm Exhibition and Reception in Egypt in the Pages of al-Suwwar al-mutaharrika, 1923–25
Mohannad Ghawanmeh
2. Documenting Lebanon
Mohamad Soueid
3. Documentary Filmmaking in Iraq
Ali Abudlameer
4. Palestine Fights—A Look behind the Scenes of PLO-GDR Cooperation in Film-Making
Irit Neidhardt
5. The Will to Expose: Documentary Filmmaking in Postrevolutionary Tunisia
Nouri Gana
6. Algerian War for Independence: Documentaries Questioning History
Ahmed Bedjaoui
7. Short History of Moroccan Non-fiction Film
Ali Essafi
8. Funding the “Creative Documentary”. An Art Cinema of Refugees
Kay Dickinson and Viviane Saglier
9. Arab Documentary Landscapes. Transnational Flow of Solidarity at Festivals
Stefanie van der Peer
Aesthetics/Politics of Representation
10. Negative / Positive: Newsreels in Nasserite Egypt and the Crafting of National Identity
Yasmin Desouki
11. From Poetics of Revolution to the Poetics of the Human. Voice-Over in Egyptian Documentary 1956–82
Viola Shafik
12. From Silhouettes to Superstars. Documenting Aids/HIV in Egyptian Cinema
Hend Alawadhi
13. Me and Not Me. The Personal-Collective Voice of First Person Films from the Egyptian Revolution
Alisa Lebow
14. ‘Gardening a pitiless mountain dreamed of faraway with its owner only a passing shadow’
Oraib Toukan
15. The Arab Jew and the Inscription of Memory
Ella Shohat
16. Grappling with Israel. From Sontag to Lacan and the Maoists in Between
Hanan Toukan
17. Political Issues in Tunisian Women’s Cinema
Mathilde Rouxel
18. Cinema and the Struggle of Women in Algeria
Olivier Hadouchi
19. Spaces of Dispossession. Experiments with the Real in Contemporary Algerian Cinema
Peter Limbrick
20. The Daring Lyrics of Women Music Documentary Filmmakers in the Maghreb
Florence Martin
21. 300 km South of Marrakech. Imider, Artivism and the Environmental Documentary in Morocco
Jamal Bahmad
22. Screen Fighters: Filming and Killing in Contemporary Syria
Donatella della Ratta
Filmmakers and Individual Works
22. Jean Chamoun. Lebanon’s Suspended History
Hady Zaccak
23. Paper Airplanes. An Interview with Akram Zaatari
Dore Bowen
24. Opaque Encounters in Films About Palestine: Kamal Aljafari
Nadia Yaqub
25. Syria Portrayed in Two Documentaries by Omar Amiralay
Ahmad Izzo
26. The Berlin Ashlaa-Incident. A Letter to Filmmaker Hakim Belabbes
Stefan Pethke
27. The UAE’s Nujoom Alghanem. The Past, the Present, the Nation and the Individual Alia Yunis
28. Iraq War Home Movies. Abbas Fahdel’s Long Format, Slow Documentary Homeland
Shohini Chaudhuri
Viola Shafik studied Film and Middle Eastern Studies in Hamburg and works as a film scholar, creative consultant, and filmmaker. She has directed several documentaries, most notably My Name Is Not Ali (2011) and Arij: Scent of Revolution (2014). She is the author of Popular Egyptian Cinema: Gender, Class, and Nation (AUC Press, 2007) and Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity (revised and updated edition, AUC Press, 2016).
"Tracing the complex histories of documentary filmmaking in the Arab region to the present day is made especially challenging by decades of official disregard for archiving film, let alone funding it. Elegantly arranged according to the sector’s macro, meso, and micro levels—from structures to the politics of representation and individual works—this rich collection of cutting-edge scholarship rises to the challenge in ways that will stimulate further research."—Naomi Sakr, University of Westminster
“The variety of historical documentaries across the Arab world comes to life. . . . An important resource as it uncovers the history of documentary film heritage that is often eclipsed by the rise of the star-system and fame culture.” —NADIM Foundation
PRAISE FOR VIOLA SHAFIK’S ARAB CINEMA:
"Intelligent, perceptive, and elegantly written, this volume deserves a broad readership. Highly recommended. All readers, all levels."—CHOICE
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