Screens and Veils

Florence Martin

Description

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2012

Examined within their economic, cultural, and political context, the work of women Maghrebi filmmakers forms a cohesive body of work. Florence Martin examines the intersections of nation and gender in seven films, showing how directors turn around the politics of the gaze as they play with the various meanings of the Arabic term hijab (veil, curtain, screen). Martin analyzes these films on their own theoretical terms, developing the notion of "transvergence" to examine how Maghrebi women's cinema is flexible, playful, and transgressive in its themes, aesthetics, narratives, and modes of address. These are distinctive films that traverse multiple cultures, both borrowing from and resisting the discourses these cultures propose.

Overture: Maghrebi Women's Transvergent Cinema
Act I: Transnational Feminist Storytellers: Shahrazad, Assia, and Farida
1. Assia Djebar's Transvergent Narrative in The Nuba of the Women of Mount Chenoua (Algeria, 1978)
2. Farida Benlyazid's Initiated Audiences in A Door to the Sky (Morocco, 1998)
Act II: Screens & Veils
3. Yamina Bachir-Chouikh's Transvergent Echoes in Rachida (Algeria, 2002)
4. Raja Amari's Screen of the Haptic in Red Satin (Tunisia, 2002)
5. Nadia El Fani's Multiple Screens and Veils in Bedwin Hacker (Tunisia, 2002)
Act III: From Dunyazad to Transvergent Audiences
6. Yasmina Kassari's "Burning" Screens in The Sleeping Child (Morocco, 2004)
7. Selma Baccar's Transvergent Spectatorship in Khochkhach (Tunisia, 2006)
Coda
Appendix A: Political and Cinematic Chronology
Appendix B: Primary Filmography
Bibliography

Sujets

• African Studies
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Women
• Película fotográfica
• África
• General officer
• Woman
• North Africa
• History of Africa
• Documentary film
• Cinema
• Arab people
• The Women
• General
• North
• Africa
• Film
• Media

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 13 octobre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253005656
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Screens and Veils

NEW DIRECTIONS IN NATIONAL CINEMAS

Jacqueline Reich, editor

Screens and Veils

NEW DIRECTIONS IN NATIONAL CINEMAS

Jacqueline Reich, editor

This book is a publication of

INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404–3797 USA

iupress.indiana.edu

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© 2011 by Florence Martin

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.

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Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Martin, Florence, [date] Screens and veils : Maghrebi women’s cinema / Florence Martin. p. cm. – (New directions in national cinemas) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-253-35668-0 (cloth : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-253-22341-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Motion pictures – Africa, North – History – 20th century. 2. Motion pictures – Africa, North – History – 21st century. 3. Women motion picture producers and directors – Africa, North. 4. Motion pictures – Social aspects – Africa, North. 5. Women in motion pictures. 6. Africa, North – In motion pictures. I. Title. PN1993.5.A35M37 2011 791.430961 – dc22 2011006527

1 2 3 4 5 16 15 14 13 12 11

To the brave men and women of Tunisia who dare speak their minds

To Robin

• Acknowledgments

OVERTURE Maghrebi Women’s Transvergent Cinema

Contents

ACT I TRANSNATIONAL FEMINIST STORYTELLERS: SHAHRAZAD, ASSIA, AND FARIDA

1 Assia Djebar’s TransvergentNuba: The Nuba of the Women of Mount Chenoua (Algeria, 1978)

2 Faripa Benlyazip’s Initiation Narrative:A Door to the Sky(Morocco, 1988)

ACT II TRANSVERGENT SCREENS

3 Yamina Bachir-Chouikh’s Transvergent Echoes:Rachida(Algeria, 2002)

4 Raja Amari’s Screen of the HaPtic:Red Satin(Tunisia, 2002)

5 Napia El Fani’s MultiPle Screens:Bedwin Hacker(Tunisia, 2002)

ACT III FROM DUNYAZAD TO TRANSVERGENT AUDIENCES

6 Yasmine Kassari’s “Burning” Screens:The Sleeping Child(Morocco, 2004)

7 Selma Baccar’s Transvergent SPectatorshiP:Flower of Oblivion(Tunisia, 2006)

CODA

• Appendix A: Political and Cinematic Chronology

• Appendix B: Primary Filmography

• Appendix C: Selected Filmography of Hiam Abbas

• Notes

• Bibliography

• Index

Acknowledgments

“Gratefulness” shares with “grace” the generous Latin root ofgratia, whose variegated sphere of meanings includes thanks, charm, even pleasure. What a delight it is to share gratefulness with all of you, who have been so giving of your stories, articles, ideas, laughter, love, companionship, films, enthusiasm, patience, meals, even your homes with me all the way to the end of this book. The book took several years in the making, during which I lost two of my dearest, wittiest conversationalists: my father, Roger-Marc Martin, and my mentor, Michel Fabre. Both of these losses have left my world askew and strangely muted, and I wish to honor their missed smiles and fatherly voices here. For his careful, smart editing and deep friendship, my thanks go first and foremost to John Boughton, an extraordinary reader and interlocutor without whose patience and brains this book would be a pale and awkward shadow of its present form. For their friendship, readings, encouragement, and careful comments, I wish to thank from the bottom of my heart Susan Hayward, Isabelle Favre, and Maryse Fauvel, as well as “the reading group” – Mark Ingram, Dan Marcus, Antje Rauwerda, John Turner – and, of course, Mifa Martin. For their generosity in sharing films, insights, laughter, meals, coffee, and friendship, I wish to warmly thank Selma Baccar, Farida Benlyazid, Sonia Chamkhi, Nadia El Fani, and Naceur Sardi. For their unfailing help in everything in Tunis and theirchaleur humainein the dead of winter, I wish to thank my Tunisian family: Lotfi, Amel, Firasse, and Ward Mallek. For his amazing resources and knowledge, my gratitude goes to Taoufik Thamri, without whom large parts of the history of Tunisian cinema would remain a mystery to me. This book would not have been possible without several summer grants from Goucher College, or without my dear student Anndal Narayanan’s help on the appendix. I am also indebted to the editors ofStudies in French Cinema Journal, who gave me permission to use and revise an article published in their journal (“Transvergence and Cultural Detours: Nadia El Fani’sBedwin Hacker(2002),” vol. 7, no. 2, 2007: 119–129) and to Yoram Allom, who authorized the use of extensive passages from a chapter I contributed to Gönül Dönmez-Colin’s anthologyThe Cinema of North Efrica and the Middle-Éast (“Bab al-samah Maftouh /E Door to the Sky, Farida Benlyazid, Morocco/Tunisia/France, 1988,” London: Wallflower Press, 2007, 123–132). Finally, this book, at long last in your language, is dedicated to you, Robin, you who opened your arms wide so I could fly away for months at a time to do research overseas, and who closed them back on me at the end of each journey.

Screens and Veils