Comparative Literature Commons^™

"All Is Not Glitter" Review Of “Beirut And The Golden Sixties: A Manifesto Of Fragility” Berlin, Gropius-Bau, 25 March – 12 June 2022 Lyon, 14 September – 31 December 2022, Nadia Von Maltzahn

Regards

The exhibition Beirut and the Golden Sixties: A Manifesto of Fragility highlights what the curators argue is the fragility of the narrative surrounding Beirut’s “Golden Age” – the period leading up to Lebanon’s civil war.
This review traces the genesis of the exhibition and presents its displays at Berlin’s Gropius Bau and the MAC Lyon. Several works are showcased to demonstrate how the curators constructed the exhibition’s five sections, which focus on place, body, form, politics, and the Civil War.
The review offers contextualization for an exhibition rich in diverse artworks and archival materials that contain a multitude of narratives.

Crossings Of Heritage, Memory And Archives: A History Of Moroccan Cinema In The Bouanani Archives, Sarah Dornhof

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This article interrogates archival forms and practices in relation to remembering the “lost archives” of Moroccan cinematographic history.
It presents the Bouanani Archives — a private, fragmented, and still largely uncatalogued collection located in the Bouanani family apartment in Rabat, comprising a variety of texts, visuals, and objects connected to Morocco’s cinematographic and cultural memory.
The archive is the personal legacy of filmmaker, writer, and artist Ahmed Bouanani (1938–2011), his wife Naïma Saoudi (1947–2012), and their daughter Batoul Bouanani (1969-2003), all of whom worked for Moroccan cinema.
Today, it is preserved and cared for by his daughter Touda Bouanani and …

Towards A Decentered History Of Palestinian Revolutionary Cinema? Case Study Of The Film “Tall El Zaatar” In The Audiovisual Archives Of The Italian Communist Party, Hugo Darroman

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The film Tall El Zaatar (1977, Abu Ali, Pino, Chamoun, Palestine/Italy), a co-production between the Palestinian Cinema Institute and the Italian Communist Party’s (PCI) audiovisual company, was considered lost for three decades and finally rediscovered in 2011.
Beyond the dramatic stories surrounding this film, Tall El Zaatar reveals the importance of considering the transnational dimension of Palestinian militant cinema.
In this article about Tall El Zaatar, I approach the history of Palestinian revolutionary cinema through the traces left within the archives of an institution with which the Palestinian filmmakers collaborated.
On the basis of a set of interviews and …

Ciné-Archivistes And The Metaleptic Archive Of Lebanese Cinema, Claire Launchbury, Marilyn Matar, Max Silverman

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The article considers three Lebanese films – Il était une fois, Beyrouth (1995) by Jocelyne Saab, the short Le Liban à travers le cinéma (2003) and the documentary Cinéma de guerre au Liban (2003), both by Hady Zaccak – to explore the archival impulse in their composition.
We suggest that this impulse takes two major forms: the use of a montage of sequences from Lebanese films, or films about Lebanon, and crossovers between narrative thresholds and between fact and fiction.
We draw on Gérard Genette’s version of metalepsis to analyze the nature of these crossovers, and on the notion of …

Le Cinéma Maghrébin Entre Traçabilité Coloniale Et Déterminations Nationales, Malika Gueddim

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This article focuses on the beginnings of cinema in the Maghreb countries (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia), which suffered the same process of enculturation in favor of the culture of the French occupier.
From the end of the Second World War, the colonial authorities understood the importance of cinema, through fiction or newsreels, and the urgency of creating cinematographic centers: in Morocco in 1944, and in Tunisia in 1946.
Algeria, considered a French department rather than a protectorate, was provided with a cinematographic service by the Algerian governorate in 1947.
Then comes the period of independence, in which directors from these …

Iraqi Cinema Beyond The Screen And The Archives Of Leisure, Pelle Valentin Olsen

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The emergence of new forms of leisure in Iraqi urban landscapes, such as cinemas, nightclubs, and theaters, unleashed debates about the dangers and potentials of leisure.
The result of this process is a vast, albeit scattered, archive of texts that deal with practices and institutions of leisure.
The archive of leisure, as it pertains to cinema, can be located across a variety of texts including memoirs, short stories, student essays, police records, official discourse, medical texts, and works by Iraqi historians.
Given the limited access to Iraqi film and cinema archives, the archive of leisure can offer an important addendum …

سيميولوجيا جمالية الفضاء في فيلم: "السنونو لا يموت في القدس" لرضا الباهي, Abdel Salam Shaaban

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In this study, we aim to conduct a perceptual experiment and a semiological reading of the aesthetics of space in the film El Sounounou La Yamoutou Fil Kods by Tunisian director Ridha Behi.
This film, produced in 1994, came as a response to the accusation that Tunisian cinema ignored the Palestinian cause. It also combines three genres of cinematic practice: fiction, documentary, and political.
The film tells the story of the search for a mother who has been lost since 1948. A daily newspaper publishes a recent photo of this mother. The director takes her story as a starting point …

برهان علوية – اللقاء المتواصل, Haddy Zaccak

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With the passing of Borhane Alaouié, Lebanese cinema loses one of its most prominent directors and spiritual fathers.

ملخص

.مع رحيل برهان علوية، تخسر السينما اللبنانية أحد أبرز مخرجيها وآبائها الروحيين

L’Adieu Hors De Tout Lieu. L’Espace Funéraire Réinventé Par J. Amado, Réimaginé Par O. Fazwy, Dahlia El-Séguiny

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In The Double Death of Quincas-Water-Bray by Jorge Amado and its Egyptian cinematographic adaptation, The Paradise of the Fallen Angels by Ossama Fawzy, the funerary preparation leads to an ironic reflection on life and death, and the confrontation between the value systems of the bourgeoisie and the marginalized.
This article studies the question of borders, “real” or virtual, between narrative spaces.
It is based on the concept of heterotopia (Michel Foucault), which offers a reflection on the constitution of a “different space” within the real location, and the notion of intermediality (Silvestra Mariniello), which questions the conceptual space that emerges …

« Bennesbeh La Boukra Chou ? » Et « Film Ameriki Tawil » : De La Restitution Des Vues « Rêvées » ?, May El-Koussa

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Throughout history, the integration of archival images into cinema has taken different forms depending on contexts and styles. Whether in fiction, documentary or experimental filmmaking, archival footage has been used for different purposes and for different reasons. Over time, this practice turns into an aesthetic and is referred to as found footage. This article asks the question of the link between cinema constructed from found footage and the philosophical concept of “heterotopias” developed by Michel Foucault, by studying the films representing the plays of Ziad Rahbani Bennesbe la boukra chou? and Film ameriki tawil, released in 2016, whose …

« 1982 », De Oualid Mouannes, Pamela Nassour

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War is the main element in the Lebanese collective consciousness and memory. Throughout the years, Lebanese citizens fight its residue, which still traumatizes them and defines their existence. For artists, the reaction appeared through their work, and in this article, the Lebanese film 1982 by director Oualid Mouaness will be tackled. This film is analyzed through its aesthetics and plot. Mouaness had a story to tell, like any other Lebanese witnessing that era. Thus, his film 1982 is to be added to the long list of Lebanese war films. Yet, what makes it different? In this article, we study Mouaness’s …

Introduction – L’Adaptation Au Cinéma Égyptien : Enjeux Théoriques Et Historiques, Walid El Khachab, Salma Mobarak

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Alors que la tradition du récit arabe dont l’Égypte a hérité remonte à la fin du VIIe siècle, la naissance du roman moderne se situe au tournant des XIXe et XXe siècles.
C’est à cette même époque (1896) qu’eut lieu la première projection du cinématographe à Alexandrie...

Les Transferts De La Littérature Occidentale. Alibis Culturels Ou Réception D’Archétypes ?, Michel Serceau

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During the entire 20th century, dozens of Western literary works and plays were adapted to the Egyptian screen in hundreds of films.
The Western works adapted by Egyptian filmmakers were chosen because of the universal aspect of the archetypes and social issues at the heart of these, and because of their dramatic – even melodramatic – appeal in the eyes of the viewers.
Film directors preferred to adapt novels that were not deeply committed to a social and realist ideology, while still drawing the high esteem enjoyed by literature towards cinema, which, in its infancy, was a practice in search …

Du Roman « Zeth » Au Feuilleton « Bint Ismaha Zeth » Ou Le Traitement De L’Histoire Dans Une Adaptation Télévisuelle Égyptienne, Ramla Ayari Charif

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The issue of adapting literary works for television has only recently begun to arouse researchers’ interest. Egypt, the leading country in television production and the imagining of literary works on television across the Arab world, witnessed a new lease of life from 2011 to 2014.
The TV series Bint ʾismaha Zeth, produced in 2013 by Kamla Abouzekri and Khairy Beshara, is a striking illustration of the phenomenon.
Adapted from the novel Zeth written by Sonallah Ibrahim, the TV fiction retraces, through the story of its heroine, the history of Egypt from 1952 to 2011.

Résumé

La question de l’adaptation …

Contexte, Réception Et Intermédialité Dans L’Adaptation Des Mains Douces De Tawfik El-Hakim, Yasmine Haggag

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From the play by Tawfik el-Hakim (1954) to the film by Mahmoud Zoulficar (1963), Soft Hands involves adapting the stage to the screen and the content to the socio-historical context. After placing the play and then the film in their cultural and socio-historical settings, the study focuses on the adaptation work by closely examining the language, characters, plot, settings, and music, in order to assess the various transformations carried out for better reception by the audience.

Résumé

De la pièce de Tawfik el-Hakim (1954) au film de Mahmoud Zoulficar (1963), Les mains douces mettent en jeu l’adaptation de la scène …

Symbolique Et Oblicité Politique Dans Deux Adaptations Égyptiennes Du Comte De Monte-Crist, Randa Sabry

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After exploring the diversity of the elements borrowed from The Count of Monte Cristo by the two adaptations of Henri Barakat – Amir al-intiqam and Amir al-dahaa – this article analyzes the way they work towards their own coherence through a cultural acclimatization on different levels and by the grafting of a subplot with political implications in line with the social context of 1950s and 1960s Egypt.
Far from accomplishing only his own revenge, the hero is led, in the wake of a political prisoner, to join the sphere of rebellion against the representative of tyranny and to prepare for …

Une Femme D’Égypte Du Papier À L’Écran : Adapter « Les Années De Zeth » Après La Révolution, Thomas Richard

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By adapting Sonallah Ibrahim’s Zaat, the eponymous TV show deeply transforms the original novel, unfolding new meanings for the viewer in the context of post-revolutionary Egypt.
Through a comparative analysis of the novel and the TV show, this study intends to understand how the show offers a portrait of Egyptian society and a portrait of a woman that are inscribed within the renewal of the political gaze Egyptian society develops on herself.
Simultaneously, this gaze questions how gender relations are brought to the screen, and how they are linked to social and national issues.

Résumé

En adaptant le roman …

Introduction – Formes Narratives Et Co-Production Dans Les Cinémas Des Pays Arabes, José Moure, Elie Yazbek, Wissam Mouawad

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Malgré la reconnaissance, surtout ces dernières années, et le succès de certains films arabes sur la scène internationale, et malgré l’augmentation remarquable du nombre de festivals de cinéma dans les pays arabes, ce qui reflète un intérêt toujours grandissant dans ces pays pour le cinéma, les industries cinématographiques dans cette région du monde restent en général peu développées...

Le « Cinéma D’Auteur » De Palestine : Expérimentations, Circulations, Émancipations, Marion Slitine, Charlotte Schwarzinger

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This article explores the stakes of the “cinema d’auteur” in Palestine and intends to analyze the constraints and opportunities that this cinema allows, through two case studies that question the cinematographic creation of Palestinian directors in exile. The first is a feature-length film, Recollection by Kamal Aljafari, a filmmaker from “Palestine of 48” who self-produced his film; the second, Dégradé by Arab and Tarzan Nasser, two directors from Gaza, benefited from an Arab-European co-production. While these two examples have very distinct characteristics, their comparative trajectories make it possible to raise more general questions related to the interactions between creation, production …

Le Cinéma Libanais Coproduit : Écarts Et Variations, Noha Maroun

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Lebanese filmmakers often choose particular narrative forms for their co-produced movies. Either they deviate from traditional screenplay writing or they develop a lot of thematic variations. The margins of freedom, creativity, and inventiveness therefore increase globally in Lebanese co-produced cinema. To what extent are these new narrative forms adapted to the destabilized Lebanese geopolitical context? How do documentaries, dramas, and road movies establish a kind of Lebanese identity and memory in these movies, leading to their frequent selection in European and international film festivals?

Résumé

Les cinéastes-auteurs libanais choisissent souvent des formes narratives particulières pour leurs films coproduits. Ils oscillent …

La « Condition Des Femmes » Au Maghreb Fait Recette Sur Le Marché Du Film Européen ! 1990-2019, Patricia Caillé

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This article examines the commercial and symbolic valorisation of Maghrebi films on the European market, looking at film admissions, film criticism, and academic discourses. It explores the position and the significance of films made with Maghrebi funding in Europe, while focusing more specifically on films on the condition of women, and films by women filmmakers. Comparing the circulation of Tunisian and Moroccan films in Europe, it highlights the recurring narrative tropes of these films and shows how films on the condition of women became the lead product on the French market. These films brought more success to male than to …

Possibilité Du Filmage Documentaire Des Marges Berbères Au Maroc : Cas Comparés Des Tournages Clandestins De « La Longue Journée » (Mohamed Abbazi, 1969) Et D’« Amussu » (Nadir Bouhmouch, 2019), Marie Pierre-Bouthier

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This paper explores two filmic attempts at compensating for the invisibility in which Amazigh people and struggles are kept in Morocco. Both films and filmmakers experimented with shooting and production plans, devices, and film forms that should best convey these realities. With a 50-year interval between the two, both attempts share the ambition to go against the limitations imposed by the “Centre Cinématographique Marocain”, resorting to clandestine shooting and supported by an international network. In particular, both attempts were made possible by a detour through California (USA). The Breadwinner (1969) is an unfinished documentary by Mohamed Abbazi, dedicated to the …

Petites Et Grandes Guerres : Une Filmographie Des Longs Métrages Tournés Au Liban Pendant La Guerre Civile (1975-1990), Hady Zaccak

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This study was carried out as part of the “Ciné-rencontres de l’ALBA” (Académie libanaise des beaux-arts, University of Balamand), a film event organized at the School of Cinema and Audiovisual Directing by Ghassan Koteit, May El Koussa, Danielle Davie, Myriam Hage, and Gregory Buchakjian, from April 9 to 12, 2019.
This filmography includes 70 feature films (fiction and documentaries) shot in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990...

Résumé

Cette étude a été effectuée dans le cadre des « Ciné-rencontres de l’ALBA » (Académie libanaise des beaux-arts, University of Balamand), événement de rencontres cinématographiques organisé à l’École de cinéma et de réalisation …

Les Co-Productions Algériennes Avec L'Europe : Standardisation Ou Résistance ?, Salima Tenfiche

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After more than twenty years of silence, Algerian cinema has resurfaced on the international scene for ten years, through co-productions with foreign countries and especially Europe. The use of foreign funding and the recognition of these films by the legitimating institutions of the North — reading committees and prestigious international festivals — raise the question of the subjugation of these filmmakers to European cultural hegemony.
However, if some Algerian filmmakers and producers appeal to foreign funds, it is above all to free themselves from the supervision of the State and from censorship in their own country. These filmmakers are far …

La Guerre Civile Libanaise Au Cinéma Et Les Circulations Transculturelles, Thomas Richard

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The trajectories of Lebanese film directors and their work, characterized by a strong international dimension and by their insertion within the art film networks, bear the mark of interactions between local and global visual and memorial norms linked to these trajectories, in a globalized cultural environment. These films, though enriched by this international dimension, may appear to develop their narrative following the demands of international festival audiences, risking that these demands become constraints, and at the risk of possible loss of contact with local audiences.

Résumé

Les circulations des cinéastes libanais et de leurs œuvres, fortement marquées par une dimension …

Production Locale Et Coproductions Européennes Des Films D'Auteur Dans Le Cinéma Turc Contemporain, Hilal Ahiskali

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Since its birth, Turkish cinema has gone through different eras that have allowed it to progressively evolve towards an author cinema. Even though it took longer than for European cinema, certain contemporary Turkish directors today manage to nourish themselves not only from the aesthetics and theory of European cinema but also from their own cinematic culture called Yeşilçam. This is the result of their cinematographic approaches, their independent productions, and European financial support. These production sources have allowed Turkish directors to choose the subjects of their films to work on their art, rather than serve the commercial expectations of …

Gérer La Distance : Réflexivité Et Éthique Des Corps Meurtris Dans Les Documentaires Syriens D’Après 2011, Nicolas Appelt

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Taking into account the post-2011 Syrian documentary, we realize that the question of the representation of “bruised bodies” occupies a major place which goes beyond crimes’ documentation committed during the conflict. In fact, in a large number of them there is a respect, an ethics towards “bruised bodies”. The question of their representation raised deep debates concerning both the fact of showing bodies and how to do it. By focusing more on how to represent bodies, we will be interested in the reflexive and ethical dimension that these representations involve. In this perspective, it will therefore be a question of …

Du Corps Écran À La Ville Corps, Noha Maroun

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The human body always attracts and fascinates Arab filmmakers, that is why it is considered as an agglomerate of signs, which usually reveals the social and political instability of a nation. In the Lebanese cinema, the body representations are controversial and related to war themes. The men’s body becomes the screen and the receptacle of the violence when it exhibits its wounds and scars, while the moving women’s body holds within itself the early signs of safeguards. The moving women’s body is also correlated to the space that determines its trajectory. Beirut city emerges then as a huge body in …

Subversion, Subjectivité Et Critique : Le Corps Dans La Performance Artistique Aux Émirats Arabes Unis, Océane Sailly

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Between 1982 and 1984, London-trained, Dubai-based artist Hassan Sharif produced and documented a body of performance work that is often seen to inaugurate the practice of contemporary performance art in the United Arab Emirates. In his wake, artists Mohammed Kazem and Ebstisam Abdulaziz have further developed this artistic genre and profoundly altered the relationship between art and corporeality. Subversive, critical and political, these three artists have made their bodies a tool for challenging established standards while claiming their artistic subjectivity. Based on a selection of performances and taking into account the socio-cultural context of their realization, this article proposes to …

Introduction – Les Régimes Esthétiques Du Corps Dans Le Monde Arabe, Gilles Suzanne

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Que l’art, dans le monde arabe (qui nous servira de périmètre), voire, dans l’aire d’influence culturelle de l’Islam qui ne saurait s’y réduire, entretienne un rapport au corps, n’a rien d’une découverte...