Roy Armes - New Voices in Arab Cinema

NEW VOICES IN ARAB CINEMA

Roy Armes

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2015 by Roy Armes

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ISBN 978-0-253-01516-7 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-253-01522-8 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-253-01528-0 (ebook)

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For Helen, Philip, and Alison

Arab cultural modernity in the twentieth century was probably even more far-reaching than during the nineteenth-century renaissance, since it went beyond the written word. Other forms of cultural creation presented themselves, different ways in which Arab artistic expression could reflect its timein the visual arts, theatre, music and in particular the cinema.

Samir Kassir, Being Arab

MANY PEOPLE HAVE helped me with the compilation of this book, and I thank those, among them festival organizers and film distributors, who have guided me to new sources of material: Masoud Amrall Al Ali of the Gulf Film Festival, Marie-Claude Behna of the Association de Cinma Arabe, Stphanie Boring of Films dIci, Catherine Chicot, Jaqueline Dallmair of trigon-film, Mona Deeley of Zenith Films, Nick Denes of the Palestinian Film Foundation, Alberto Elena of the Carlos III University in Madrid, Haithem El-Zabri of the Palestine Online Store, Yael Friedman, May Hossam of Misr International Films, Rose Issa, Tarik Khalami of the Centre Cinmatographique Marocain, Thierry Lenouvel of Cin-Sud Promotion, Nicole Mackey of Fortissimo Films, Diran Mardirian of Video Chico in Beirut, Lela Mourad of Aramis Films, Egil Odegard of the Norwegian Film Institute, Anne-Ccile Pavaux of 3B Productions, liane Raheb of the Beirut Film Festival, Michel Riachi of Nadilekolnass in Beirut, John Sinno of Typecast Films in Seattle, Annabel Thomas, Suzanne Widmer of trigon-film, and Abdellah Zerguine of Regard Sud.

I am especially grateful to those filmmakers who provided, or helped provide, access to DVD or on-line copies of their own films: Ahmad Abdalla, Layth Abdulamir, Mohamed Alatar, Kamal Aljafari, Khaled al-Haggar, Koutaba al-Janabi, Ayda Ben Aleya, Nigol Bezjian, Nadia Cherabi-Labidi, Dima El-Horr, Abbas Fahdel, Dalia Fathallah, Nasri Hajjaj, Moktar Ladjimi, Najwa Najjar, liane Raheb, Ahmed Rashwan, Djamila Sahraoui, Leila Sansour, Hany Tamba, Tariq Teguia, and Hady Zaccak.

Last, but by no means least, I must thank the Leverhulme Trust for the award of a further Emeritus Fellowship which helped to finance the research for this book.