Cinema in the Arab world has been the subject of varied and rigorous studies, but most have focused on films as text, providing in-depth analyses of plot, style, ideologies, or examination of the biographies of prominent directors or actors. This innovative new volume shifts the focus on Arab cinema off-screen, to examine the histories, politics, and conditions of distribution, exhibition, and cinema-going in the Arab world. Through broadening the frame of study beyond the screen, the book widens understanding of the cinema, not merely as a collection of films-as-texts, but as a site of cultural and political contestation in the Arab world. Divided into two sections, and guided by interdisciplinary considerations, the contributors examine historical and contemporary issues of Arab cinema in terms of the experience of movie-going and filmmaking. They examine the networks of distribution and exhibition, as well as the contested and multiple meanings that the cinema embodied through diverse historical periods and geographical locations. Part I focuses on new histories of Arab cinema in terms of film production, distribution, exhibition and audience's experiences of cinema-going. Part II deals with more recent issues within scholarship on Arab cinema such as issues of politics, economics, ideologies, as well as issues related to Arab movies' international circulation and screenings at festivals. Together, the chapters enrich our understanding of the cinema in the Arab world, showing how deeply embedded it is within its social, political, and economic contexts.

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.

From the exaggerated emotions of 1930s Egyptian melodrama to the cryptic allegories of late 20th-century Palestinian cinema, Arab World Cinemas guides you through 28 Arabic-language feature films released between 1933 and 2021, including Muhammad Khan's 'Dreams of Hind and Camilia' (1989), Moufida Tlatli's 'Silences of the Palace' (1994) and Elia Suleiman's 'Divine Intervention' (2002). Written specially for students, the book is split into 3 parts: Egypt, North Africa and the eastern Arab world. Each part begins with an introductory essay that highlights the aesthetic and socio-historical trends and currents in the cinematic traditions particular to that region. Marle Hammond then dedicates individual chapters to a group of films from the highlighted region, interpreting their form and content through the lenses of cinematic technique and concepts drawn from various disciplines in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

One of the first internationally published overviews of theatrical activity across the Arab World. Includes 160,000 words and over 125 photographs from 22 different Arab countries from Africa to the Middle East.

Intended for scholars of film and the contemporary Middle East, this title provides a comprehensive overview of cinema in the Arab world, tracing the industry's development, since colonial times. It analyzes the ambiguous relationship with commercial western cinema, and the effect of Egyptian market dominance in the region.

The Routledge Companion to World Cinema explores and examines a global range of films and filmmakers, their movements and audiences, comparing their cultural, technological and political dynamics, identifying the impulses that constantly reshape the form and function of the cinemas of the world. Each of the forty chapters provides a survey of a topic, explaining why the issue or area is important, and critically discussing the leading views in the area. Designed as a dynamic forum for forty-three world-leading scholars, this companion contains significant expertise and insight and is dedicated to challenging complacent views of hegemonic film cultures and replacing outmoded ideas about production, distribution and reception. It offers both a survey and an investigation into the condition and activity of contemporary filmmaking worldwide, often challenging long-standing categories and weighted—often politically motivated—value judgements, thereby grounding and aligning the reader in an activity of remapping which is designed to prompt rethinking.

Arab regionalism details and examines the power relations involved in the making of an Arab region. On an empirical level, this book concentrates on the drawing of topographic and ideational boundaries in the Arab region, on Arab regional organizations, on the functional cooperation among Arab states and institutions, and on the socio-cultural infra-structure that supports the Arab region making process, with a strong focus on post-1990 dynamics. On a theoretical level, this work makes a case for the analytical autonomy of "Arab" regionalism (as opposed to regionalism in the Middle East or in the Mediterranean) and for the necessity of approaching it as an actual process instead of a failed project. The attitude of debasement and erasure towards Arab regionalism that is common-place in the field of regional studies is replaced in this book for the acknowledgment that there is much more political coordination, economic cooperation and social integration in the Arab region than has previously been assumed. Providing a fresh perspective on Arab regionalism, this book will be an essential resource for scholars and researchers with an interest in Regionalism, Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations.

The cinema has been the pre-eminent popular art form of the 20th century. In Cinemas of the World, James Chapman examines the relationship between film and society in the modern world: film as entertainment medium, film as a reflection of national cultures and preoccupations, film as an instrument of propaganda. He also explores two interrelated issues that have recurred throughout the history of cinema: the economic and cultural hegemony of Hollywood on the one hand, and, on the other, the attempts of film-makers elsewhere to establish indigenous national cinemas drawing on their own cultures and societies. Chapman examines the rise to dominance of Hollywood cinema in the silent and early sound periods. He discusses the characteristic themes of American movies from the Depression to the end of the Cold War especially those found in the western and film noir – genres that are often used as vehicles for exploring issues central to us society and politics. He looks at national cinemas in various European countries in the period between the end of the First World War and the end of the Second, which all exhibit the formal and aesthetic properties of modernism. The emergence of the so-called "new cinemas" of Europe and the wider world since 1960 are also explored. "Chapman is a tough-thinking, original writer . . . an engaging, excellent piece of work."—David Lancaster, Film and History