In a major addition to the academic library on the cinema of Youssef Chahine and on Arab and Egyptian cinema in general, Malek Khouri here presents the most comprehensive and up-to-date study on Chahine's work to appear since his death in 2008. The methodological approach of the book, and more precisely the discussion of the theme of Arab national unity from a post-colonial point of view, emphasizes the ideological underpinnings of this Egyptian director's themes as well as his esthetics. The author focuses on the interaction between Chahine's personal and political preoccupations, his eclectic cinematic style, and his devotion to connecting with a wide audience of filmgoers. The Arab National Project in Youssef Chahine's Cinema is an important contribution to original scholarship in the fields of cultural studies, sociology of film, and history of cinema, and will be of great interest to scholars, students, and cinema lovers all over the world.

This book sheds light on cultural expressions of Arab Nationalism and the contradictory meanings often attached to it. It presents nationalism as an experienceable set of identity markers – in stories, visual culture, narratives of memory and struggles with ideology. Using case studies, the book transcends a conventional history that reduces nationalism in the Arab lands to a pattern of political rise and decline. It suggests Arabs have constructed an identifiable shared national culture, and it critically dissects conceptions about Arab nationalism as an easily graspable secular and authoritarian ideology modelled on Western ideas and visions of modernity.

While Middle Eastern culture does not tend to be associated with laughter and levity in the global imagination, humor—often satirical—has long been a staple of mainstream Arabic film. In Humor in Middle Eastern Cinema, editors Gayatri Devi and Najat Rahman shed light on this tradition, as well as humor and laughter motivated by other intent—including parody, irony, the absurd, burlesque, and dark comedy. Contributors trace the proliferation of humor in contemporary Middle Eastern cinema in the works of individual directors and from the perspectives of genre, national cinemas, and diasporic cinema. Humor in Middle Eastern Cinema explores what humor theorists have identified as an “emancipatory,” “liberatory,” even “revolutionary” function to humor. Among the questions contributors ask are: How does Middle Eastern cinema and media highlight the stakes and place of humor in art and in life? What is its relation to the political? Can humor in cinematic art be emancipatory? What are its limits for its intervention or transformation? Contributors examine the region’s masterful auteurs, such as Abbas Kiarostami, Youssef Chahine, and Elia Suleiman and cover a range of cinematic settings, including Egypt, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey. They also trace diasporic issues in the distinctive cinema of India and Pakistan. This insightful collection will introduce readers to a variety of contemporary Middle Eastern cinema that has attracted little critical notice. Scholars of cinema and media studies as well as Middle Eastern cultural history will appreciate this introduction to a complex and fascinating cinema.

In this book, Robert K. Beshara applies decolonial film theory to an analysis of Youssef Chahine's (1997) Al-Masir (Destiny). Transmodern Cinema and Decolonial Film Theory is the first book on decolonial film theory, which unpacks key concepts in decoloniality and decolonial aesthetics. Decolonial film theory is then applied to Youssef Chahine's (1997) historical drama al-Ma?ir in an effort to juxtapose the Egyptian filmmaker (Chahine) and his decolonial cinema to the Andalusian polymath (Ibn Rushd) and his Islamic philosophy.

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.

This collection of original essays presents new scholarship on nearly three dozen feature-length films, including silent films, animated films, films in black and white, and films in technicolor, along with other, shorter examples of cinematic medievalism. Written by contributors from around the globe with a wide variety of backgrounds, the essays in this volume take a critical approach to one of the most popular forms of medivalism. This book presents a full century of cinematic depictions of the Middle Ages, with new examinations of works such as The Seventh Seal, God's Fool, La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, Saladin the Victorious, Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic, and A Knight's Tale, among others.

An engaging biography that offers a new perspective on one of the most influential figures of the Crusades In 1187, Saladin marched triumphantly into Jerusalem, ending decades of struggle against the Christians and reclaiming the holy city for Islam. Four years later he fought off the armies of the Third Crusade, which were commanded by Europe's leading monarchs. A fierce warrior and savvy diplomat, Saladin's unparalleled courtesy, justice, generosity, and mercy were revered by both his fellow Muslims and his Christian rivals such as Richard the Lionheart. Combining thorough research with vivid storytelling, Jonathan Phillips offers a fresh and captivating look at the triumphs, failures, and contradictions of one of the Crusades' most unique figures. Bringing the vibrant world of the twelfth century to life, this book also explores Saladin's complicated legacy, examining the ways Saladin has been invoked in the modern age by Arab and Muslim leaders ranging from Nasser in Egypt, Asad in Syria, and Saddam Hussein in Iraq to Osama bin Laden, as well as his huge appeal across popular culture in books, drama, and music.

Arab Film and Video Manifestos presents, in their entirety, five key documents that have fundamentally shaken up and helped change the face of image culture in the Middle East and beyond. The book collects together, for the first time, these influential, collectively written calls and directives that span a fifty-year period and hail from a range of different countries. Each urges a radical rethinking of film and video’s role in culture, its relation to politics, and its potential to instigate profound change. Kay Dickinson carefully positions the manifestos within their broader socio-historical contexts and provides supplementary reading and viewing suggestions for readers who cannot access Arabic-language sources.

"World Socialist Cinema: Alliances, Affinities and Solidarities reconstructs the trajectories of international film circulation between the Soviet Bloc and the countries of the Global South in the mid- to late Twentieth Century. The book takes as its focal point the Tashkent International Festival of Cinemas of Asia, Africa and Latin America that took place in Uzbekistan (USSR) throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Centering on the vast body of cinematic work from the three continents screened at the festival and paying particular attention to the internal tensions and gender dynamics within it, the book proposes world socialist cinema as a distinct formation, providing an alternative to Euro-centric and/or national and regional narratives of film history: an international socialist cinema as seen from the vantage point of the Global South"--

Selected for Arab America's Best Arab American Books of 2020 list. It comes as little surprise that Hollywood films have traditionally stereotyped Arab Americans, but how are Arab Americans portrayed in Arab films, and just as importantly, how are they portrayed in the works of Arab American filmmakers themselves? In this innovative volume, Mahdi offers a comparative analysis of three cinemas, yielding rich insights on the layers of representation and the ways in which those representations are challenged and disrupted. Hollywood films have fostered reductive imagery of Arab Americans since the 1970s as either a national security threat or a foreign policy concern, while Egyptian filmmakers have used polarizing images of Arab Americans since the 1990s to convey their nationalist critiques of the United States. Both portrayals are rooted in anxieties around globalization, migration, and US-Arab geopolitics. In contrast, Arab American cinema provides a more complex, realistic, and fluid representation of Arab American citizenship and the nuances of a transnational identity. Exploring a wide variety of films from each cinematic site, Mahdi traces the competing narratives of Arab American belonging—how and why they vary, and what’s at stake in their circulation.