Maghrebs in Motion: North African Cinema in Nine Movements

Description

Exploring films made in Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria from 1985 to 2009, Suzanne Gauch illustrates how late post-independence and early twenty-first century North African cinema prefigured many of the transformations in perception and relation that stunned both participants and onlookers during the remarkable uprisings of the 2011 Arab Spring. Through multifaceted examinations of key films by nine filmmakers--Farida Benlyazid, Mohamed Chouikh, Nacer Khemir, Nabil Ayouch, Lyès Salem, Nadia El Fani, Tariq Teguia, Faouzi Bensaïdi, and Nejib Belkadhi--Gauch delineates the shifting relation of politics to film in the era of neoliberal globalization. Each work, she argues, taps the power inherent in cinema to destabilize patterns of perception and judgment while taking film's role as popular entertainment in new directions. Highlighting how each film taps into the mobility at the core of cinema to break through the boundaries that have long circumscribed filmmaking from North Africa, Gauch shows how this cinema continues to forge and reflect unexpected trajectories for itself and its audiences. Dedication Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Note to Readers Introduction: Imperatives of Wonder; or, Moving beyondThe Battle of Algiers Part I: Sight Lines 1. Doubling Back, Moving On: Farida Benlyazid’s A Door to the Sky (1988) 2. Twilight Dawns: Mohamed Chouikh’s The Citadel (1989), Youssef (1994), and Ark of the Desert (1997) 3. Sand Castles: Nacer Khemir’s The Wanderers of the Desert (1986), The Lost Neckring of the Dove (1991), and Baba Aziz: The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul (2005) Part II: Hero Complex 4. For the Record: Nabil Ayouch’s Mektoub (1997) 5. Off Road: Lyes Salem’s Masquerades (2008) 6. Signal Crossings: Nadia El Fani’s Bedwin Hacker (2003 Part III: Scan Backward / Scan Forward 7. Vacancies: Tariq Teguia’s Rome Rather Than You (2006) 8. Hooking Up: Faouzi Bensaïdi’s WWW: What a Wonderful World (2006) 9. Breaking Out: Nejib Belkadhi’s VHS Kahloucha (2007) Epilogue: Now Playing Notes Bibliography Index