Arab Cinema

Reviewed at: https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/jciaw_00130_5

“In this penetrating volume, Terri Ginsberg provides us with an example of film scholarship at its most radical. Giving fresh and detailed attention to the Palestine solidarity films of two Arab women directors, Ginsberg challenges us to rethink some of our most basic political assumptions, calling into question multiple disciplines, fields of inquiry, and epistemological frameworks. This book does not just describe decolonization; it partakes in it.”
—Greg Burris, Associate Professor of Media Studies, American University of Beirut; author of THE PALESTINIAN IDEA: FILM, MEDIA, AND THE RADICAL IMAGINATION

This book places long overdue focus on the Palestine solidarity films of two important Arab women directors whose cinematic works have never received due attention within the scholarly literature or the cultural public sphere. Through an analysis that situates these largely overlooked films within the matrix of an anti-Zionist critique of cinematic ontology, this book offers a materialist feminist appreciation of their political aesthetics while critiquing the ideological enabling conditions of their academic absenting. The study of these daring films fosters a much-needed, sustained understanding of the meaning and significance of Palestine solidarity filmmaking for and within the Arab world.

This chapter surveys the career of the Egyptian filmmaker Yousry Nasrallah (born 1952). Through an analysis of the eight feature-length films he directed between 1988 and 2012, it considers the relationships between his social background and biography, his pursuit of autonomy from the economic interests of mainstream film production, and the ways his films challenge social norms.

If you would like a copy of this chapter, please email me at [email protected] and I'll be glad to send it to you.

Casablanca dans WWW : What a Wonderful World (2007) et Tétouan dans Mort à vendre (2013) sont représentées comme des villes fermées qui emprisonnent les personnages, ceux-ci n’ayant aucune prise sur elles. Plus qu’à l’enfermement, Bensaïdi s’intéresse au fort désir de changement et d’action de ses personnages. Se crée ainsi une tension entre, d’un côté, cet élan qui les anime et, de l’autre, la nature de leur monde, inaccessible et impénétrable. De cette tension découle une subtile évolution au sein même de situations tout à fait sans issue, une évolution qui touche l’intériorité des personnages mais aussi les villes qu’ils habitent, un devenir mutuel et réciproque.

Pour citer cet article :
Mariam El Ajraoui,« Le devenir cinéma de la ville chez Faouzi Bensaïdi, Casablanca dans WWW : What a Wonderful World et Tétouan dans Mort à vendre » in José Quaresma (coordination), Chiado, Carmo, metropolis et u-topie. Les arts dans la sphère publique. Lisbonne, éditions Associação dos Arqueólogos Portugueses, 2016.  pp 173-183.

The full article can be found by following this link:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13629387.2016.1150183
Below are some excerpts:

The start of the 1980s marks Djebar’s return—after a decade-long absence—both to writing in general and to the French language in particular. If the 1970s stand out in her bibliography as a conspicuous gap in productivity, the circumstances of this gap are well-documented. Djebar has written about this period in her work indicating that she thought that she could write in Arabic. Yet, Arabic written by her would never appear in print. In 1980, she published Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement, soon followed by a series of novels, all in French. At first look, it seems as though Assia Djebar eventually forsakes her unfruitful Arabic experiment for a definitive return to publishing in French. However, her Arabic experiment did bear fruit, and her output in that language did see the light of day, only it was on screen, rather than on the page. Those familiar with the Algerian author’s oeuvre know that the 1970s’ gap in her bibliography corresponds to her foray into filmmaking, which yielded two films. These films will also remain her only works that are not in French.
If Djebar did not write in Arabic but made a film instead, then how is filmmaking, in her case, a more suitable medium for Arabic expression than writing?
In order to begin answering this question, I focus on the first of her two films, The Nouba of the Women of Mount Chenoua (1978), and articulate my analysis of both the film and its circumstances around the interrelated notions of aphasia, diglossia, and what I call arabophonie in Algeria. The last of these notions merits qualification straight away. The term arabophone is generally used in the objective sense of speaking Arabic. However, I intend it to convey the same connotation that francophone carries. Just as postcolonial implications of margin and centre result in francophone signifying not quite French, the Maghreb can be arabophone also in the sense of not quite Arabic. As to diglossia, while commonly addressed in the discipline of linguistics, and central to studies of Arabic within that field, it is, in this case, also relevant from a literary perspective. Nevertheless, it is necessary to start by considering the role of Nouba in Djebar’s work, and the role of speaking for the main character, or, as it happens, not speaking, which I designate as aphasia. This choice of word is not innovative by any means. Djebar herself used it as part of a chapter title in L’Amour, la fantasia (1985). By asking how is film a better suited medium than writing for Arabic expression in Djebar’s case, what I submit is that aphasia became essential to Djebar’s work specifically in its ties to Arabic, and the language’s position in Algeria at the intersections of French, Tamazight, and a broader Arabic-speaking region.
APHASIA
Nouba is a traditional form of urban music in the Maghreb, with its roots in Arab Spain, which is why it is sometimes also called Andalusian. The word nouba has entered French in its musical sense to mean a loud, carnivalesque revelry. However, it carries another meaning, still prevalent in the original Arabic, signifying ‘turn’ or ‘opportunity’ (as in take a turn, or get an ‘opportunity’ or a ‘chance’). This double meaning is intentional, and the women’s nouba in the title carries both senses of ‘women’s song’ (implying their song in their own voice), and ‘women’s turn’ (implying their turn to speak). The connection between the sense of ‘turn’ and the musical form is based on the trilateral root ن.و.ب, meaning representing (or acting as representative), it is also etymologically related to substitution and deputation or proxy. 
The titular nouba suggests that it is literally their turn to speak after they were overlooked by history, and their voices silenced, which is consistent with Djebar’s role as a historian. However, it is not enough to get a turn to speak, one needs a voice to speak with. In the other sense, of nouba, Lila substitutes the women of the Cherchell area’s voice for her own. With their turn to speak, they give Lila a voice as much as they are given one, and they represent her as much as the film represents them. Nouba is the facto the porte-parole of these women.
DIGLOSSIA
It is important to stress the difference between the two varieties of language that constitute Diglossia. Because these varieties are situational and socially-governed, they can easily be mistaken for tone or register, and diglossia can be misunderstood when the focus is only on the social factors that regulate the situations in which H or L is used. However, the differences between the two can be very pronounced, resulting in what may seem like two different languages, each with its own grammar, lexicon, and phonology. The implications of likening varieties of a language to separate languages can be highly inflammatory and politically laden. My purpose, however, is merely to indicate the apparent difference between H and L Arabic. Most importantly, however, it is essential to keep in mind that speakers of a diglossic language are not necessarily proficient in both varieties. While the L variety is acquired the way any language is acquired, namely through speaking to children, H is achieved through formal education.
This difference in acquisition is crucial. Using H or L is not necessarily a social choice, but a privilege of the literate. The first implications of this privilege for Nouba should be immediately apparent when taking into account the literacy rates of Algeria in the 1970s. According to UNESCO, and based on a 1971 census, the illiteracy rate in Algeria was 73.6% for segments of the population aged fifteen and over, and illiteracy among rural women specifically for that age group was 94.0% (1978, 42). While the literacy of the women in the film is unverifiable, the illiteracy rates among women in rural Algeria at the time were high by any standard. These women, speaking L Arabic only as a result of illiteracy, literally and very tangibly do not have a say in situations where the use of H is required. Consider, for instance, that parliament and political speeches are examples of some of these situations where H is used.
ARABOPHONIE
When taking into account the perceived superiority of certain varieties of Arabic, arabophonie, in this context, is analogous to what the term francophonie connotes, which is precisely not quite French. Arabophone, then, suggests a perceived inferiority in comparison to other varieties of Arabic. To clarify this analogy, I propose to focus on one crucial feature of francophonie, which is that it always entails the significant existence of at least one other language alongside French. Whether it is Wolof or the many other languages of West Africa, a Créole in the Caribbean, English in North America, Dutch or German in Europe. Naturally, the situation in each of these regions is considerably more complex than I am sketching here. However, the consistent feature that differentiates France from francophone countries or regions, is that in France only French is imagined to exist, regardless of the factual existence of other languages. In contrast, when French-speaking societies are francophone rather than French, the existence—officially acknowledged or not—of some other idiom is essential.
Similarly, arabophonie is demarcated by the apparent presence of one or more other languages in the region or society. It is the appearance of a presence of another language that is the significant feature here, rather than its actual presence. Defining Arabophonie as the fact of speaking Arabic in a bi- or multilingual context acknowledges the alleged inferiority of certain varieties of Arabic based on the belief that the presence of other languages in the region is corruptive, whether this belief and the hierarchy that it implies are adhered to or not. As such, it is different from a rivalry between regions (each claiming their variety of Spoken Arabic being closer to Fussha for example), but acknowledges without necessarily condoning the dynamic between an Arabic centre and a periphery, and the ensuing discrimination against, and/or paternalist attitudes towards, literary and cultural production in certain varieties of Arabic over others. In this sense, when one does not adhere to the language attitude that arabophonie describes, it remains possible to condemn and reject its hierarchical implications, or denounce the marginalization, silencing, or snubbing of the other languages that make it arabophone rather than Arabic.
Algeria is arabophone in that at least one other language is perceived to exist alongside Arabic. This is a fundamental difference between the Maghreb and other Arabic-speaking regions. In the Maghreb, the presence of French is obvious. In fact, often what defines the Maghreb as a region, is precisely that it is the three former French colonies of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. This makes it francophone, but, consequently, arabophone also. However, if The Maghreb is obviously arabophone given the existence of French as a result of colonialism, Tamazight (the Amazigh language also known as Berber) compounds the complexity of the diglossic situation in Algeria, and plays an even more important role in making the region arabophone rather than strictly Arabic. Although the women of the Cherchell area speak in Dardja with Lila, they are also Amazigh, making Dardja presumably their second language, and Tamazight their first.

Togo Mizrahi, an Egyptian-born Jew, established a movie studio and production company in Alexandria, and became one of the most prolific filmmakers in Egypt in the 1930s and 40s. Films produced in Mizrahi’s Alexandria studio between 1934 and 1939 represent a culture of coexistence among the lower classes, featuring Jewish, Greek, Nubian, and Levantine characters, alongside the majority Muslim population. I argue that these films attempt to shape to the popular imaginary of what it means to be Egyptian through their representations of a diverse urban landscape.

This article examines two films that Mizrahi wrote, directed, and produced featuring a friendship between a Chalom, a Jew, and 'Abdu, a Muslim: al-Manduban [Two Delegates, 1934]; al-'Izz Bahdala [Mistreated by Affluence, 1937]. These films construct an ethics of coexistence, perhaps best articulated through the repeated celebration of the dual weddings between Chalom and Esther, 'Abdu and Amina.

In contrast to the social status of the Egyptian Jewish Bourgeoisie, this article argues that Mizrahi’s films specifically seek to articulate the place of Jews in the Egyptian polity through characterization of Chalom as a salt-of-the-earth, Arabic-speaking, ibn al-balad.

This article explores how Mizrahi’s films contributed to debates about who was Egyptian.
The 1930s and 40s saw the rise of notions of Egyptian national identity that excluded minorities. Despite Mizrahi’s effort to portray a culture of coexistence, the Chalom and 'Abdu films contain with themselves the discourse of otherness that were employed to drive a wedge between Egyptianness and Jewishness.

Th is paper focuses on the ever-growing popularity of scenes depicting and referring to hashish and marijuana use in Egyptian cinema. It argues that a shift in attitude and in the overall depiction of these substances has emerged in more recent fi lms, those produced in the 1990s and after. It suggests that whereas in older cinema these substances were always associated with social and political ills, almost all negative connotations and associations have disappeared in favor of an acceptable and playful depiction. Drawing on the theoretical framework of the carnivalesque developed by Bakhtin, and the work of other scholars such as Gilles Deleuze and Walter Benjamin, this paper suggests that the depictions of smoking hashish and marijuana are subversive moments that ultimately aim at escaping rigid social structures and power hierarchies while providing commentaries on repressive social and political realities.

This research discusses how Arabic Poetry can be reenacted through the medium of Poetry films. It gives an account of the different movements of Arabic Poetry, and how the role they played in the Arab and Egyptian culture has changed over time. The research also discusses the new approach of animated Poetry films that visualize poems in various techniques, and attempts to see how these techniques can be incorporated to create an Animated Poetry Film that visualizes an Arabic poem.

More than 60 feature‑length narrative films have been produced in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since the first in 1988. Few, however, have generated an excitement to suggest Emirati filmmaking may become popular culture. The first supported by the state‑owned media company, Image Nation Abu Dhabi, was Djinn (2013), staged local folklore of a female djinn under the direction of a Hollywood filmmaker. It was lampooned by critics and largely ignored by audiences. This article considers how and when Emirati filmmaking might become part of a UAE film culture by revaluating frameworks that define UAE film audiences and by comparing two films that feature Emirati citizens, alongside Arab, European, and South Asian expatriates to move discussions beyond Arabization, cosmopolitanism, and exceptionalism.

Jocelyne Saab (1948-2019) est née et a grandi à Beyrouth dans les années 1950. En 1973 elle devient reporter de guerre au Moyen-Orient en couvrant la guerre d'Octobre pour le magazine 52 de la troisième chaîne française. En 1975 elle dirige son premier long métrage, un documentaire, Le Liban dans la tourmente, qui sort en salle à Paris. Après avoir couvert la guerre quinze ans durant au jour le jour dans son pays, réalisé plus de trente films et reçu plusieurs prix internationaux, notamment pour son film sur le siège de Beyrouth en 1982 Beyrouth ma ville, elle réalise au Vietnam le documentaire La Dame de Saïgon, prix du meilleur documentaire français. Jocelyne Saab se tourne ensuite vers la fiction en tant qu'assistante de réalisation de Volker Shloendorf sur Le Faussaire. En 1985 elle réalise son premier long-métrage, Une vie suspendue (L'Adolescente sucre d'amour), sélectionné au Festival de Cannes à la Quinzaine des réalisateurs, suivi de Il était une fois Beyrouth, film dédié à l'anniversaire des cent ans du cinéma. Son film Dunia, tourné en Egypte en 2005 et traitant du thème du plaisir lui vaudra d'être condamnée à mort par les fondamentalistes égyptiens. Parallèlement au cinéma, Jocelyne Saab a mené à partir de 2007 une activité d'artiste plasticienne.

Very often, scholars and cultural critics regard Hollywood's portrayal of Arabs, Muslims and the Middle East as stereotyped, clichéd and, in some cases, downright offensively racist. Yet, there are very few scholarly works that investigate this issue from a production perspective. Drawing from theories on cultural production and creative personnel, and combining them with fieldwork I conducted on the set of Tyrant (2014-2016), FX Channel's Middle Eastern drama, this article seeks to contribute to this literature by exploring the complexities of the accurate representation of Arabs, Muslims and the Middle East when working with a mixed cast in a series intended for a diverse audience, which by necessity also deals with politics.

This special issue engages the historical and contemporary heterogeneity of the Gulf, which was a transcultural space long before the discovery of oil. Over the past two decades, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have actively begun to harness the media’s power, while at the same time grassroots productions—online, through social media and in regional festivals—reframe assumptions about film and visual media. With resident expatriate population comprising up to 90 percent of the population in Gulf states, film and visual media complicate conventional frameworks derived from area studies, such as ‘Arab media’, ‘Middle Eastern and North African cinema’, or ‘South Asian film’. These articles also unsettle the modernist divisions of media into distinct categories, such as broadcast television and theatrical exhibition, and consider forms that move between professional and nonprofessional media, and between private and semi-public spaces, including the transmedia spaces of theme parks and shooting locations. Articles examine the subjects of early photography in Kuwait, the role of Oman TV as a broadcaster of Indian films into Pakistan, representations of disability and gender in Kuwaiti musalsalat, tribal uses of social media, and videos produced by South Asian and Southeast Asian expatriates, including second-generation expatriates.

Please cite the This practice-based research addresses the challenges that face the animation practitioner in the Arab region. In engaging with this topic it highlights the contrast with international animation producers, and also seeks to analyse how Arab animation cinema is represented and understood in the West. It introduces Arab animation history, and the animation industry as it currently exists in the Middle East. I suggest the reasons why there have been so few animated shorts and feature-length films successfully produced in the Arab world, in spite of their being a rich literary and cultural heritage. This study reveals a number of cultural, religious, political and economic issues related to Arab animation cinema, both in relation to its history and in regard to its place domestically and internationally. This research explores how YouTube and other social media became the main platform for Arab animation artists to distribute their political works during and since the 'Arab Spring' in the Middle East. The immediate consequence of this is an explosion in the exposure of Arab animation artists and their work to the world, in comparison to the very limited opportunities and freedoms of the past. Moreover, this study seeks to open up a conversation about the possibility of showing animated films that include Arabic content to Western audiences. This is complex in the sense that the place and presence of Arab animated stories are affected by how the representation is perceived within its production context and conditions of exhibition. My research will result in original knowledge, to be made available to Arab filmmakers, the Arab film industry and international academics addressing and championing animation, by engaging with conceptual questions, creating a critical practice methodology, and applying research-led practice methods.published version.

Reviewed at: https://online.ucpress.edu/fq/article/74/2/120/114357/Review-Cinema-of-the-Arab-World-Contemporary
"Ginsberg and Lippard have managed something rare: a riveting collection of essays with a consistently strong voice throughout. These chapters treat a diverse archive of films, filmmakers, and contexts with theoretical and historical depth and an urgency of interpretation, challenging the enormous gaps in our knowledge of Arab cinematic expression. Not only is this book indispensable for courses on Arab cinema, it will undoubtedly prompt new routes of inquiry for researchers, teachers, and viewers alike." — Peter Limbrick, University of California-Santa Cruz, USA

“CINEMA OF THE ARAB WORLD fills gaps in the literature and re-envisions the ways in which Arab cinema has been looked at previously. It succeeds by avoiding conforming to the stereotypical molds that guide some scholarship about the region. The mix of established scholars as well as young researchers, and the inclusion of different philosophical and critical theories and methodologies, make this book indispensable to anyone interested in understanding contemporary Arab cinema. Highly recommended." — Orayb Najjar, Northern Illinois University, USA

This volume engages new films and modes of scholarly research in Arab cinema, and older, often neglected films and critical topics, while theorizing their structural relationship to contemporary developments in the Arab world. The volume considers the relationship of Arab cinema to transnational film production, distribution, and exhibition, in turn recontextualizing the works of acknowledged as well as new directorial figures, and country-specific phenomena. New documentary and experimental practices are referenced and critiqued, while commercial cinema is covered both as an industrial product and as one of several instances of contestation. The volume thus showcases the breadth and depth of Arab film culture and its multilayered connections to local conditions, regional affiliations, and the tendencies and aesthetics of global cinema.

Mi texto escrito para mi ciclo (13 proyecciones) "La Tricontinental. Cine, utopía e internacionalismo" para el Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid).
My text written for my film program (13 screenings) "Tricontinental. Cinema, Utopia and Internationalism for Museum Reina Sofía (Madrid).

The image of Saladin as known in the contemporary Arab world is the result of a long evolution through popular culture. The character of Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (Saladin) was mediated many times in 20th-century Arab popular media. His odyssey started in the genre of drama during the Arab Enlightenment, then continued in Egyptian cinema, Syrian television dramas and latterly animated films. The character of what became the “enlightened Arab/Muslim ruler” was first discovered by the authors of minority groups in the late 19th century, and was subsequently used by Arab political forces, who inspired and also supported artists to make popular adaptations in order to draw analogies between past and present. This article aims to prove that it was most probably the later narratives presented by theatre and film rather than ideological works that inspired Arab politicians to use Saladin’s memory for their own sakes, and that it was the Saladin images presented in Arab cinema and television that played a crucial role in shaping the popular image of Saladin in the contemporary Arab world. Movies and serials not only play an increasingly important role in reshaping representations of history but have become a main source for learning about particular historical events. The character of Saladin has been adapted and appropriated not only to teach people about their past, but to support political agendas of the present as well.

This research attempts to depict close-ups' art in terms of functions in one of Mohamed Khan's mid-career movies: Wife of an Important Man (1987).
it is an analysis of five different scenes in which Khan massively used the close-ups. Further, It provides a description of these close-ups' functions in each one of the scenes.

La défaite des armées égyptiennes, syriennes et jordaniennes face à Israël en juin 1967, ainsi que les lourdes pertes territoriales auxquelles cette guerre a conduit, bouleverse la construction identitaire des peuples arabes. Les peuples n’ont plus confiance en leur système politique. Résister, et affirmer son identité, doit passer par d’autres moyens de lutte. Pour certains, la guérilla semble le seul moyen d’action possible ; d’autres, à l’arrière, proposent une refonte des pratiques artistiques, mis au service de la lutte. Dans ce contexte émergent les premières femmes réalisatrices du monde arabe, qui s’engagent sur tous les fronts pour rendre compte de l’état de fait dans lequel leur génération, après la défaite, se trouve plongée. Notre étude s’intéresse à la manière dont la défaite de 1967 a transformé le rapport au mythe du « peuple » dans le monde arabe, et à la façon dont les femmes cinéastes, jusque-là quasi absentes de l’histoire du cinéma arabe, ont pu participer, par leurs films, à cette révolution du regard.

Cinema during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) was a medium that depicted and engaged with the myriad of issues surrounding the violence. In particular, the war was a fecund moment for the Lebanese left in presenting their understandings, critiques, and aspirations for society and the nation. Maroun Baghdadi (1950–1993) was one of the leading Lebanese cineastes, who produced a raft of documentaries at the outset of the war. These documentaries agitated for revolution against the sectarian order understood as part of the wider capitalist infrastructure. Baghdadi disseminated these ideas on discursive, emotional, and affective registers. After the heady initial years of the war, the left splintered and the war became an increasingly internecine conflict bereft of its earlier revolutionary aspirations. Baghdadi’s later documentaries agitated not for revolution but rather a peaceful coexistence that would precede reforms by agreement rather than arms.

In his description of modern political cinema, Gilles Deleuze touches rather briefly on Youssif Chahine's Alexandria Why? (1979) as he explains how it subscribes to minor cinema. He ascribes to Chahine's film the quality of a 'compositional mode', which Deleuze categorises as the third characteristic of minor cinema. The aim of this paper is, therefore, not only to elaborate on the Deleuzian view discussed in his book Cinema 2: The Time-Image (1985) but also to examine extensively how Chahine's film blurs or conforms to the other characteristics of minor cinema. The paper furthermore explores Deleuze's three descriptions of modern political cinema in relation to Deleuze and Guatarri's conceptual understanding of minor literature as explicated in their book Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (1975).

On the Centennial of Law 25 of 1920, the conference considers the past one hundred years of family law reform in Egypt (and beyond) from the vantage point of the relations between governance and popular culture. The aim is to explore how changes in the social practices related to the family are a function of legislative interventions, court decisions, and expectations generated in popular culture.

Popular culture tends to be the prominent absent in the narrative of changes in family law, and the workshop intends to reflect on how to build a broader, common narrative where films and television productions can feature as powerful agents of societal practices, alongside legislative interventions and court decisions.

Deadline for abstracts: 15-Mar-2020.  Conference in London on 28-29-May-2020

This article defines the most prominent features and conventions of Arab SF film and television in the twentieth century by examining its narrative, structural, cultural, and production-related conventions. This includes the usage of folk literature and local mythology and certain SF devices, such as advanced medicine.
In addition to breaking down the genre’s plot devices, the paper looks at its history, its transitions from comedic to serious modes of narrative, and its evolution over the course of the twentieth century.

يهدف المقال إلى مراجعة صورة الرياضي في السينما المصرية وفهم خلفيات ظهورها بهذا الشكل، خاصة إنه منذ بداية الألفينيات ظهرت موجة من الأفلام التي تكون الشخصية الرئيسة فيها لاعب كرة قدم أو ملاكم، وهي ما أُطلق عليه مصطلح "السينما الرياضية". وعلى الرغم من وفرة المقالات التي تنقد هذا النوع الجديد من السينما، لم تظهر تقريبًا أية مجهودات أكاديمية لتحقيقه او فهم العلاقة بين "السينما" وتمثيل "الرياضة" والرياضيين فيها بعمق. ومن خلال هذا المقال أراجع علاقات "السينما" و"الرياضة" و"البطولة" ، لأصل إلى الدوافع التي تجعل شخصية الرياضي بطلًا سينمائيًا وعلاقتها بنظرة المجتمع له، باعتبار السينما تمثيلًا للخيال الاجتماعي. وفي ذلك، ويرتكز المقال على مناقشة محورين، أولًا: البطل السينمائي أو الشخصية الرئيسة في الأفلام،  باعتبارها انعكاسًا لصورة "البطل" في المخيلة الاجتماعية، وثانيًا: تحقيق شخصية الرياضي كما صورتها السينما المصرية.

"Back to the Past - Filmed History in Arab Cinema" - Magnes Press, Jerusalem, 2015.

בחזרה לעבר - היסטוריה מצולמת בקולנוע הערבי
הוצאת מאגנס, ירושלים
מצורף קובץ התוכן והמבוא

https://www.magnes-press.com/Book/Back+to+the+Past.aspx?code=45-461007

In recent years, the Arab world and Iran have been afflicted by cataclysmic events, among them brutal state crackdowns of revolutions. Yet, filmmakers have persisted in their desire to tell their stories, against the odds, in creative acts that attest to their imagination, courage and resilience.

In this book, Shohini Chaudhuri examines a broad range of films made during the tumultuous 2009–2020 period, ranging from internationally award-winning festival favourites, such as For Sama (2019), Capernaum (2018) and Taxi Tehran (2015) to lesser-known films from the region. While freedom of expression is often understood through the lens of state censorship, she reveals the different types of obstacles that filmmakers face and their strategies for overcoming them so that those constraints are transformed into creative opportunities. Using her original interviews with filmmakers such as Waad al-Kateab, Yasmin Fedda, Larissa Sansour, Mani Haghighi and Ossama Mohammed, she identifies nine creative strategies – witnessing, child protagonists, animation, psychogeography, road movies, humour, stories within stories, archives and sci-fi dystopia – for producing work under conditions of crisis.

Chaudhuri develops the argument that creativity is indelibly shaped by constraints, whether these are externally imposed by existing materials, funding and socio-political conditions, or self-imposed constraints, through choices of genre or acceptance of rules and responsibilities. Moving beyond prevalent allegorical interpretations, she shows that the range of creative strategies emanating from the region is much wider than allegory and becoming ever more direct. She thus opens up new lines of inquiry into cinematic creativity in sites of conflict and crisis in the Middle East and beyond.

Read the Introduction here: https://tinyurl.com/CrisisCinema

El artículo presenta un panorama general de las realizadoras de cine documental en el mundo árabe. Partiendo de una introducción que analiza los aspectos relevantes en rela-ción a la situación de las mujeres, su participación en el espacio público y su ingreso en la producción audiovisual se adentra luego en el análisis de sus principales referentes divi-diendo la región en tres grandes segmentos. El primero de ellos aborda la descripción del cine egipcio, pionero en la región, así como la participación femenina en sus comienzos y en la producción documental. El segundo se centra en el Sham (Siria, Líbano y Palestina) analizando la particularidad de una región atravesada por los conflictos interétnicos y la tragedia palestina. El tercero desarrolla la producción audiovisual documental de las mu-jeres del Magreb (Argelia, Marruecos y Túnez) en relación con las identidades culturales múltiples que se ven plasmadas en sus obras.
ABSTRACT This paper provides a general overview of women documentary filmmakers in the Arab world. The text intends to elaborate on these aspects in relation to the condition of wom-en's roles, their participation in the public sphere and their participation in audiovisual production. Subsequently, it focuses on the analysis of the most remarkable figures, dividing the region in three segments. The first segment approaches the Egyptian cinema, a pioneer in the region. Likewise, in this segment, women's participation in the Egyptian cinema in its beginning and their participation in the documentary production are addressed. The second segment focuses on the Sham (Syria, Lebanon and Palestine) analyzing the particular characteristics of a region which has gone through several interethnic conflicts and the Palestinian tragedy. The third segment elaborates on the documentary audiovisual production of women filmmakers from the Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) in relation with their multiple cultural identities which are in turn reflected on their productions.

Dubai is often defined by aerial shots of its landmark architecture in Bollywood and Hollywood films. By activating fantasies of seeing the whole city, the lived social realities of the city’s inhabitants fade from view. With Ali F. Mostafa’s City of Life (Dar al-haya, 2009, United Arab Emirates) as an example, this article explores the possibility of a cinema of contact zones, drawing upon Dubai’s historical interconnections with the world through intersecting globalizations. The film offers parallel narratives about different classes of residents that overlap, mingle, compete, align, and realign in spaces that are experienced differently. Stories of Emirati best friends, Indian taxi drivers and businessmen, East European flight attendants, and British “expats,” as well as other less visible residents, convey how lives entangle but do not entwine into community. Rather than reducing the film to an example of “national cinema” or “world cinema,” it is more productive to understand it as a film about a city that is itself produced through relationships to multiple places. The film invites audiences to think about noticing connections, rather than take comfort in confirming assumptions. It does not reward audiences with voyeuristic consumption of the city in its totality. More than a conflict zone, as the Middle East is often conceived, Dubai is a contact zone. City of Life acknowledges that Dubai is neither free of social inequities nor defined by them. Dubai is a place of possibilities and risks. It is a contact zone with all the contradictions that contact zones always contain.

Paris, le 12 juin 2011
Né à Lattaquié en 1954, formé à l’Institut des hautes études cinématographiques de Moscou (VGIK),
Oussama Mohammad est l’une des figures de proue du cinéma syrien et arabe. Certains l’ont
comparé au réalisateur américain Terence Malik, un rapprochement justifié par les thèmes qu’il
aborde (le rapport à la nature, la substance de la vie…) et par le temps qu’il consacre à l’élaboration
de chaque film – à cette date, son oeuvre compte deux longs métrages. Son film Etoiles de jour (
Nujûm an-Nahâr) a reçu l’année de sa sortie, en 1988, la Palme d’or du Festival cinématographique
de Valencia ; c’est par ailleurs l’un des cas de censure les plus célèbres en Syrie, puisqu’il a été
interdit de diffusion publique (une interdiction qui n’a toujours pas été levée) par son propre
producteur, l’Organisme national du cinéma. Oussama Mohammad a dû attendre quatorze ans
avant de pouvoir réaliser son second long-métrage, Sacrifices (Sundûq ad-Dunyâ), projeté pour la
première fois au Festival de Cannes en 2002.
Parallèlement à son oeuvre de fiction, Oussama Mohammad a collaboré à de nombreuses reprises
avec celui qui fut son compagnon de route, le documentariste syrien récemment décédé Omar
Amiralay.
Oussama Mohammad se trouve en France depuis mai dernier, ayant répondu à l’invitation du
Festival de Cannes pour une table ronde sur le thème « faire des films sous une dictature », une
intervention qui lui a permis de témoigner des pratiques répressives auxquelles les artistes et les
militants syriens sont confrontés depuis mars 2011, début de la contestation populaire dans le
contexte du « Printemps arabe ». Son témoignage a eu un énorme retentissement, tant à l’échelle
locale qu’internationale, ce qui a contribué à alerter le plus grand nombre sur les atteintes portées
contre ce mouvement citoyen et pacifique. Il lui a également permis de faire connaître cette nouvelle
esthétique réaliste que constituent les films tournés sur téléphone portable.
Aujourd’hui, Oussama Mohammad regarde… réfléchit… espère… s’active… aime… aime la Syrie… aime
le cinéma… aime son ami Omar… aime la jeunesse syrienne éprise de liberté… aime la nature… aime
son épouse Noma…
Rencontre exceptionnelle de plus de six heures dans une petite localité de la région parisienne… Une
demi-journée durant laquelle il fut question de la patrie syrienne, de la révolution, de l’art, de la vie et
de l’amour… Avec gravité et sincérité… Avec parfois quelques rires subtils comme le cinéma
d’Oussama Mohammad… Avec aussi quelques larmes suscitées par cette difficile période.