This volume engages new films and modes of scholarly research in Arab
cinema, and older, often neglected films and critical topics, while
theorizing their structural relationship to contemporary developments in
the Arab world. The volume considers the relationship of Arab cinema to
transnational film production, distribution, and exhibition, in turn
recontextualizing the works of acknowledged as well as new directorial
figures, and country-specific phenomena. New documentary and
experimental practices are referenced and critiqued, while commercial
cinema is covered both as an industrial product and as one of several
instances of contestation. The volume thus showcases the breadth and
depth of Arab film culture and its multilayered connections to local
conditions, regional affiliations, and the tendencies and aesthetics of
global cinema.