Film in the Middle East and North Africa

This is the first study to cover cinemas from Iran to Morocco. Nine essays present the region's major national cinemas, devoting special attention to the work of directors who have given image and voice to dissent from political regimes, from patriarchal customs, from fundamentalist movements, and from the West. These country essays are complemented by in-depth discussions of eighteen films that have been selected for both their excellence and their critical engagement with pressing current issues. The introduction provides a comprehensive overview of filmmaking throughout the region, including important films produced outside the national cinemas. The long history of Iranian cinema, its international renown, and the politics of directors confronting the state, earns it a special place in this volume. The other major emphasis is on the Israel/Palestine conflict, featuring films by Palestinian directors, Israelis, and an Egyptian working in Syria. Twenty authors collaborated on this book, among them Walter Armbrust, Roy Armes, Kevin Dwyer, Eric Egan, Nurith Gertz, Lina Khatib, Florence Martin, and Nadia Yaqub. About half of the contributors are film scholars; the others range across literary studies and the social sciences to two film directors and a novelist. Beyond differences in disciplinary orientation, there is considerable variation among contributors in the perspectives that inform their writing. They offer an illuminating range of approaches to the cinemas of the region. -- Jacket.

"Josef Gugler's edited volume Film in the Middle East and North Africa is the spectacular achievement of a singularly committed scholar determined to highlight a world of cinema scarce known to people around the world. Gugler and his colleagues virtually craft the terms of engagement with an emotive universe that has been known only to a very fortunate few. Read this volume as you would watch a masterfully cut trailer of coming attractions, and note the names of films and filmmakers, all grandmasters of their art. The filmmakers are foreign when you look at their names, perhaps, but uncannily familiar the instant you give them your undivided attention for a few precious pauses between reality and hope."--Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University, author of Masters and Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema and editor of Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema.

"This book is a very significant contribution, not only to the English-language discussion of Israeli cinema ... but also to understanding the highly contradictory developing dynamics of Israeli culture overall. The two key features of the book are its exceptionally thoughtful and insightful commentaries on the films selected and its refusal to blunt the sharp edges: Palestinians, [Holocaust] survivors, Sabras, and Mizrahim all find a voice."--John D.H. Downing, John T. Jones, Jr., Centennial Professor in Communication, University of Texas at Austin.

The struggle to forge a collective national identity at the expense of competing plural identities has preoccupied Israeli society since the founding of the state of Israel. In this book, Yosefa Loshitzky explores how major Israeli films of the 1980s and 1990s have contributed significantly to the process of identity formation by reflecting, projecting, and constructing debates around Israeli national identity. --Book Jacket.