Crisis Cinema in the Middle East

Crisis Cinema in the Middle East
Author: Shohini Chaudhuri
Publisher:
Total Pages: 256
Release:
Genre: Courage in motion pictures
ISBN: 9781350190542

"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 scope of international films, ranging from award-winning, festival favourites such as Five Broken Cameras (2011), Persepolis (2007) and Kiarostami's About Elly (2009) to lesser-known films originating from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Using various regional film archives and interviews with filmmakers such as Yasmin Fedda, Ossama Mohammed, Leila Sansour and Sam Kadi, Chaudhuri identifies how witnessing, humour, animation and adaptation have become prevalent creative strategies for producing work under the socio-political and material limitations of crisis. Through an interrogation of terms such as 'crisis' and 'creativity', Chaudhuri explores how films from the Arab world and Iran creatively rework the key tropes of crisis reporting perpetuated by western media. She 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 - resulting in different kinds of constrained art."--

Crisis Cinema in the Middle East

Crisis Cinema in the Middle East
Author: Shohini Chaudhuri
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2022-06-16
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1350190527

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 period since 2009, 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 for producing work under conditions of crisis. Chaudhuri argues 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.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.

Hollywood in Crisis

Hollywood in Crisis
Author: Colin Schindler
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2005-08-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134850476

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

New Voices in Arab Cinema

New Voices in Arab Cinema
Author: Roy Armes
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2015-01-29
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0253015286

New Voices in Arab Cinema focuses on contemporary filmmaking since the 1980s, but also considers the longer history of Arab cinema. Taking into consideration film from the Middle East and North Africa and giving a special nod to films produced since the Arab Spring and the Syrian crisis, Roy Armes explores themes such as modes of production, national cinemas, the role of the state and private industry on film, international developments in film, key filmmakers, and the validity of current notions like globalization, migration and immigration, and exile. This landmark book offers both a coherent, historical overview and an in-depth critical analysis of Arab filmmaking.

Crisis and Capitalism in Contemporary Argentine Cinema

Crisis and Capitalism in Contemporary Argentine Cinema
Author: Joanna Page
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2009-05-22
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0822390752

There has been a significant surge in recent Argentine cinema, with an explosion in the number of films made in the country since the mid-1990s. Many of these productions have been highly acclaimed by critics in Argentina and elsewhere. What makes this boom all the more extraordinary is its coinciding with a period of severe economic crisis and civil unrest in the nation. Offering the first in-depth English-language study of Argentine fiction films of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first, Joanna Page explains how these productions have registered Argentina’s experience of capitalism, neoliberalism, and economic crisis. In different ways, the films selected for discussion testify to the social consequences of growing unemployment, rising crime, marginalization, and the expansion of the informal economy. Page focuses particularly on films associated with New Argentine Cinema, but she also discusses highly experimental films and genre movies that borrow from the conventions of crime thrillers, Westerns, and film noir. She analyzes films that have received wide international recognition alongside others that have rarely been shown outside Argentina. What unites all the films she examines is their attention to shifts in subjectivity provoked by political or economic conditions and events. Page emphasizes the paradoxes arising from the circulation of Argentine films within the same global economy they so often critique, and she argues that while Argentine cinema has been intent on narrating the collapse of the nation-state, it has also contributed to the nation’s reconstruction. She brings the films into dialogue with a broader range of issues in contemporary film criticism, including the role of national and transnational film studies, theories of subjectivity and spectatorship, and the relationship between private and public spheres.

The Cinema of North Africa and the Middle East

The Cinema of North Africa and the Middle East
Author: Gönül Dönmez-Colin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2007
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN:

"Twenty-four essays on individual selected films, many by scholars and writers based in the region. It explores established film cultures such as those of Turkey and Iran, and also nascent cinemas such as those of Israel, Palestine and Syria. ... Selected films include Cairo Station (Egypt, 1958), Umat (Turkey, 1970), The Runner (Iran, 1989) ... Once upon a time, Beriut (Lebanon, 1994), Chronicle of a disappearance (Palestine, 1996), Circle of dreams (Israel, 2000), Ten (Iran, 2002) and Uzak (Turkey, 2003)."--Page 4 of cover.

Contemporary World Cinema

Contemporary World Cinema
Author: Shohini Chaudhuri
Publisher:
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2005
Genre: Motion pictures
ISBN:

This book provides an overview of the cinemas of Europe, the Middle East, East Asia and South Asia, interpreting some of the recent developments as strategic responses to globalisation. Highlighting transnational and cross-cultural structures, influences and themes.

Cinema of Crisis

Cinema of Crisis
Author: Austin Thomas Austin
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2020-05-28
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1474448534

Now more than ever, the idea of Europe as grounded in a shared cultural heritage cannot be taken for granted. For all its diversity, complexity and internal tensions, Europe remains a powerful economic and political superstate. But it is one in crisis, where the postwar social democratic consensus has collapsed, the failings of neoliberalism have led to widespread austerity, and extremism, xenophobia and racism are on the rise. This collection of original essays considers filmmakers' engagements with pressing issues of the moment. Taking a long view of the crisis and considering geopolitical changes that took place towards the end of the 20th century, this book examines European cinema's response to the economic, political and social crises that afflict Europe in the present.

Reel Bad Arabs

Reel Bad Arabs
Author: Jack G. Shaheen
Publisher: Interlink Publishing
Total Pages: 637
Release: 2012-12-31
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1623710065

A groundbreaking book that dissects a slanderous history dating from cinema’s earliest days to contemporary Hollywood blockbusters that feature machine-gun wielding and bomb-blowing "evil" Arabs Award-winning film authority Jack G. Shaheen, noting that only Native Americans have been more relentlessly smeared on the silver screen, painstakingly makes his case that "Arab" has remained Hollywood’s shameless shorthand for "bad guy," long after the movie industry has shifted its portrayal of other minority groups. In this comprehensive study of over one thousand films, arranged alphabetically in such chapters as "Villains," "Sheikhs," "Cameos," and "Cliffhangers," Shaheen documents the tendency to portray Muslim Arabs as Public Enemy #1—brutal, heartless, uncivilized Others bent on terrorizing civilized Westerners. Shaheen examines how and why such a stereotype has grown and spread in the film industry and what may be done to change Hollywood’s defamation of Arabs.