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Postcolonial Images
Studies in North African Film
by Roy Armes
Published by: Indiana University Press
304 Pages, 33 b&w photos, 1 bibliog., 1 index
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Postcolonial Images is a comprehensive introduction to and resource for cinema of the Maghreb. In clear and accessible prose, Roy Armes examines the political and cultural context of the films and the film industry in the post-independence era. Since the birth of cinema, North Africa has been the site of countless European and U.S. film productions. This book, however, focuses on the postcolonial period, when indigenous filmmaking in each of the three Maghreb countries—Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia—arose with the newly independent nations. Comparative analyses of each country's filmmaking in the decades following independence provide a historical portrait of the conditions and environment for the development of a postcolonial cinema. Armes then turns his attention to an in-depth examination of 10 key films produced between the 1970s and the 1990s, including Omar Gatlato, La Nouba, Halfaouine, Silences of the Palace, and Ali Zaoua. The book includes a dictionary of more than 135 North African filmmakers and a chronological filmography.
Acknowledgments
List of Acronyms
Introduction
Part I. Histories
1. Beginnings in the 1960s
2. The 1970s
3. The 1980s
4. The 1990s
5. Into the Present
Part II. Themes and Styles
6. An Indigenous Film Culture: El Chergui (1975)
7. History as Myth: Chronicle of the Years of Embers (1975)
8. A Fragile Masculinity: Omar Gatlato (1976)
9. Memory Is a Woman's Voice: La Nouba (1978)
10. Imag(in)ing Europe: Miss Mona (1987)
11. Defeat as Destiny: Golden Horseshoes (1989)
12. Sexuality and Gendered Space: Halfaouine (1990)
13. A Timeless World: Looking for My Wife's Husband (1993)
14. A New Future Begins: Silences of the Palace (1994)
15. A New Realism? Ali Zaoua (1999)
Conclusion
Appendix A. Dictionary of Feature Filmmakers
Appendix B. List of Films
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Roy Armes is Professor Emeritus of Film at Middlesex University in London. His recent books include Third World Film Making and the West, Arab and African Film Making, Dictionary of North African Film Makers, and Omar Gatlato.
"Armes (Middlesex Univ., London) scrutinizes the formation and characteristics of filmmaking in the Maghreb (Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria), the area of North Africa once colonized by France. The book is the product of years of precise, systematic research, which the author deploys in an effective organization that is almost encyclopedic. Armes divides the contents into two parts: Histories, a chronological, decade—by—decade account of the development of film in all three countries; and Themes and Styles, with ten full—scale analyses of significant films from the region. As a factual history of postcolonial moviemaking in the Maghreb, this book will not soon be superseded, but it is also important for its theory. The author distinguishes among the film cultures of the three nations while allowing their basic similarities, and he also distinguishes the Maghreb movies from French cinema—once again, noting similarities. He concludes that nationalism and colonialism are not simply antagonistic opposites. North Africans become French in the cinema, but they are principally engaged in changing the meaning of the two terms. One of the finest recent studies of national cinemas, this book includes two valuable appendixes: Dictionary of Feature Filmmakers and a complete list of films (1965, 2002). Summing Up: Essential. Lower—division undergraduates and above."
~R. D. Sears, Berea College , 2005oct CHOICE
"The book is the product of years of precise, systematic research, which the author deploys in an effective organization that is almost encyclopedic. . . .One of the finest recent studies of national cinemas . . .October 2005"
~Choice
"Roy Armes's new book Postcolonial Images: Studies in North African Cinema provides an extremely useful survey of films from Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, as well as films made by filmmakers of the North African diaspora in the postcolonial or politically post—Independence period. . .April 2005"
~H-Net
". . . Armes's well-researched book provides the reader with a major text on a neglected, important, and vibrant cinema. Vol. 40 2008"
~Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, University of New England
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