Arab Filmmakers of the Middle East
Armes roy Armes is Professor Emeritus of Film “Constitutes a ‘counter-reading’ of Film and MEdia • MIddle EasT at Middlesex University. He has published received views and assumptions widely on world cinema. He is author of Arab Filmmakers Arab Filmmakers Dictionary of African Filmmakers (IUP, 2008). The fragmented history of Arab about the absence of Arab cinema Arab Filmmakers in the Middle East.” —michael T. martin, Middle Eastern cinema—with its Black Film Center/Archive, of the Indiana University powerful documentary component— reflects all too clearly the fragmented Middle East history of the Arab peoples and is in- “Esential for libraries and useful for individual readers who will deed comprehensible only when this find essays on subjects rarely treat- history is taken into account. While ed in English.” —Kevin Dwyer, neighboring countries, such as Tur- A D i c t i o n A r y American University in Cairo key, Israel, and Iran, have coherent the of national film histories which have In this landmark dictionary, Roy Armes details the scope and diversity of filmmak- been comprehensively documented, ing across the Arab Middle East. Listing Middle East Middle more than 550 feature films by more than the Arab Middle East has been given 250 filmmakers, and short and documentary comparatively little attention. films by another 900 filmmakers, this vol- ume covers the film production in Iraq, Jor- —from the introduction dan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and the Gulf States. An introduction by Armes locates film and filmmaking traditions in the region from early efforts in the silent era to state- funded productions by isolated filmmakers and politically engaged documentarians.
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