6.4 The Middle East

The relationship between the film festival circuit and cinema from/in the Middle East has seldom been studied. Bill Nichols developed his study of reception patterns at film festivals and the “discovery” of new cinemas using the example of Iranian cinema (Nichols 1994, section 1.1; Nichols 1994, section 8). Jeffrey Ruoff has described the Carthage Film Festival as a festival focused on the promotion of Arab (and African) film (Ruoff 2008, section 6.3). Azadeh Farahmand (2002, 2006) has presented a very detailed analysis. Farahmand takes the increasing attention paid to Iranian cinema since the 1990s as a starting point to examine how socio-economic factors and institutional politics, especially those facilitated through international film festivals, contribute to the production and elevation of films and national cinema. Key issues she touches on are the problem of censorship, (inter)national financing of film productions through the film festival circuit, and political negotiations via cultural exchange (Farahmand 2002).

Along with franchising prestigious universities and museums from Europe and America in the last few years, several film festivals have been established in the Middle East as part of a larger cultural shift in the project to transform the oil region into a big cultural player. Next to older events like the Haifa IFF (25 in 2009) in Israel, Cairo IFF (33 in 2009) in Egypt, and the Fajr International Film Festival (2009 in its 27th edition) in Tehran, Iran, several new festivals have been established in recent years: for instance in 2000 the Marrakesh IFF was started with support from King Mohammed, and more recently several well-funded festivals in the emirates: the Dubai IFF, started in 2004, established itself as a platform for Arab cinema and added the Dubai Film Market in 2008; in 2007 the Middle Eastern International Film Festival (MEIFF) was launched in Abu Dhabi; in 2009 the Doha Tribeca Film Festival opened in Qatar (cf. Jaafar 2009). There is obviously research needed for these new players on the festival circuit regarding their relationships to other festivals and their impact on the regional and world film (festival) industry.

Ajroudi, Asma, and Zena Al Tahhan. “’Our Festival Is Our Window onto Others’: An Interview with Abbas Arnaout, Director of the Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 285–95.

Akser, Murat. “Table: Turkish Film Festivals.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 167–71.

Akser, Murat. “Turkish Film Festivals: Political Populism, Rival Programming and Imploding Activities.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 141–55.

Arslan, Savas. “A Glimpse at the History of Film Festivals and Competitions in Turkey.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 134–39.

Bahmad, Jamal. “Between Tangier and Marrakech: A Short History of Moroccan Cinema through Its Festivals.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 306–17.

Behlil, Melis. “’Meetings on the Bridge’: An Interview with Azize Tan, Director of the International Istanbul Film Festival.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 157–65.

Berry, Chris. “Fajr International Film Festival in the 1990s: The Past Is Another Country.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 105–13.

Ciecko, Anne. “Bridges Between: Reflections on Dubai and Its International Film Festival.” Asian Cinema, vol. 17, no. 2, 2006, pp. 17–25. doi:10.1386/ac.17.2.17_5.

Demy-Geroe. “On the Road for Iranian Cinema: Some Observations on a Decade or so of the Fajr International Film Festival.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 115–27.

Denes, Nick. “An Overburdened ‘Brand’? Reflections on a Decade with the London Palestine Film Festival.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 251–64.

Denes, Nick, and Stefanie Van de Peer. “Table: Palestinian Film Festivals.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 265–67.

Dönmez-Colin, Gönül. “Women’s Film Festivals in the Middle East: Challenges and Rewards.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 27–40.

Elena, Alberto. “Towards a New Cartography of Arab Film Festivals.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 3–14.

Estrada, Javier H. “A Festival of Resistance and Evolution: An International with Mohamed Mediouni, Director of the Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage / Carthage Cinema Days.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 319–31.

Farahmand, Azadeh. “Disentangling the International Festival Circuit: Genre and Iranian Cinema.” Global Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories, edited by Rosalind Galt and Karl Schoonover, Oxford Univ. Press, 2010, pp. 263–83.

Farahmand, Azadeh. “Perspectives on Recent (International Acclaim for) Iranian Cinema.” The New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation and Identity, edited by Richard Tapper, I.B. Tauris, 2002, pp. 86–108. E-Books von NetLibrary.

Farahmand, Azadeh. “The Forgotten Legacy: The Tehran International Film Festival (1972-1977).” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 86–104.

Farahmand, Azadeh. At the Crossroads: International Film Festivals and the Constitution of the New Iranian Cinema. Dissertation, University of California, 2006, http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1317311961&sid=1&Fmt=2&cl ientId=79356&RQT=309&VName=PQD.

Fohrer, Marion, and Stefanie Van de Peer. “Table: Film Festivals in the Gulf Region.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 297–304.

Frodon, Jean-Michel. “The Film Festival Archipelago in the Arab World.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 15–26.

Ghorbankarimi, Maryam. “Table: Film Festivals in Iran.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 129–32.

Iordanova, Dina. “Carole Zabar’s The Other Israel.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 235–45.

Iordanova, Dina. “Film Festivals as Conduits for Parallel Cinemas: Bollywood.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 75–82.

Iordanova, Dina, and Stefanie Van de Peer, editors. Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014.

Iordanova, Dina, and Stefanie Van de Peer. Introduction. Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. xxi–lvi.

Jaafar, Ali. “Film Festivals Bloom in Middle East: Events Have Sprung up over the Last Decade.” Variety, 2 Sep. 2009.

Kassem, Mahmoud. “Film Festivals in Egypt: An Overview.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 174–91.

Lebow, Alisa. “Filming Revolution: Approaches to Programming the ‘Arab Spring’.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 61–73.

Marks, Laura U. “Arab Media Art: Experiments in Exhibition.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 43–60.

Marks, Laura U. “The Stakes of the Argument: Beirut, for Example.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 213–15.

Regev, Motti. “International Festivals in a Small Country: Rites of Recognition and Cosmopolitanism.” Festivals and the Cultural Public Sphere, edited by Liana Giorgi et al., Routledge, 2011, pp. 108–23.

Saglier, Viviane. “Table: Film Festivals in Israel.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 247–50.

Saglier, Viviane. “Unstable and Sustainable: The Film Festival Institution and the Case of the Franco-Arab Film Festival in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” Transnational Cinemas, vol. 5, no. 1, 2014, pp. 41–56. doi:10.1080/20403526.2014.895622.

Shafto, Sally. “A Film Festival in the Polis: An Interview with the Organisers of the Festival du Film Arabe de Fameck.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 333–46.

Shields, Amber. “Thematic Bibliography: Film Festivals and the Middle East.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 359–76.

Sienkiewicz, Matt, and Heather McIntosh. “The Spotlight and the Shadows: Film Festivals, Israeli Cinema and Globalisation.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 221–34.

Van de Peer, Stefanie. “Table: Film Festivals in Iraq.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, p. 268.

Van de Peer, Stefanie. “Table: Film Festivals in Lebanon and Syria.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 217–20.

Van de Peer, Stefanie. “Table: Film Festivals in the Maghreb.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 347–58.

Van de Peer, Stefanie. “Table: Women’s Film Festivals in the Region.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, p. 41.

Van de Peer, Stefanie. “Damascus and Beirut, or Why Arab Film Festivals Go on and Offline.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 197–212.

van Eynde, Koen. “Table: Film Festivals in Egypt.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 193–95.

Yunis, Alia. “Red Carpet Education: The Persian Gulf Approach to Film Festivals.” Film Festival Yearbook 6: Film Festivals and the Middle East, edited by Dina Iordanova and Stefanie Van de Peer, St Andrews Film Studies, 2014, pp. 270–83.

(Last updated: 22 July 2021)