From its early focus on documentary film and nation building to its more recent spotlight on contemporary culture and feature filmmaking, Moroccan cinema has undergone tremendous change since the country's independence in 1956. In What Moroccan Cinema? A Historical and Critical Study, 1956-2006, Sandra Gayle Carter chronicles the changes in Moroccan laws, institutions, ancillary influences, individuals active in the field, representative films, and film culture during this fifty-year span. Focusing on Moroccan history and institutions relative to the cinema industry such as television, newspaper criticism, and Berber videomaking, What Moroccan Cinema? is an intriguing study of the ways in which three historical periods shaped the Moroccan cinema industry. Carter provides an insightful and thorough treatment of the cinema institution, discussing exhibition and distribution, censorship, and cinema clubs and caravans. Carter grounds her analysis by exploring representative films of each respective era. The groundbreaking analysis offered in What Moroccan Cinema? will prove especially valuable to those in film and Middle Eastern studies.

Moroccan film production has increased rapidly since the late 2000s, and Morocco is a thriving service production hub for international film and television. Taking a transnational approach to Moroccan cinema, this book examines diversity in its production models, its barriers to international distribution and success, its key markets and audiences, as well as the consequences of digital disruption upon it.

An analysis of seven films by female directors from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. 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. “Produced by a diverse group of women filmmakers—Assia Djebar, Farida Benlyazid, Yamina Bachir-Chouikh, Raja Amari, Naida El Fani, Yasmine Kassari, and Selma Baccar—these movies reflect the Algerian civil war, colonialism, patriarchy, undocumented immigrants, sexuality, identity, and the social mores that have dominated the political, social, and economic spheres in the Maghreb. . . . This book inscribes a new chapter in women filmmaking on the Maghreb; it makes an important contribution to cinema, literature, and cultural studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended.” —Choice “An excellent presentation and analysis of women’s filmmaking from North Africa. . . . Its attention to contemporary film theory is matched by its presentation of materials derived from Martin’s interviews with filmmakers, interviews that reveal a sincere engagement with the filmmakers and a deep understanding of contemporary production. In short, this is a fine book that will be of interest to anyone working on or teaching film and gender studies in North African and Middle Eastern studies, and beyond.” —Journal of Arabic Literature, Issue 44, 2013

Women Screenwriters is a study of more than 300 female writers from 60 nations, from the first film scenarios produced in 1986 to the present day. Divided into six sections by continent, the entries give an overview of the history of women screenwriters in each country, as well as individual biographies of its most influential.

Moroccan film production has increased rapidly since the late 2000s, and Morocco is a thriving service production hub for international film and television. Taking a transnational approach to Moroccan cinema, this book examines diversity in its production models, its barriers to international distribution and success, its key markets and audiences, as well as the consequences of digital disruption upon it.

This study of Moroccan society explores the country's culture through its literature, journalism and film. It examines transitions from traditionalism to modernity within the conflicted polemics of the post-9/11 world. Addresses issues including feminism, sexuality, gender and human rights and how they are conveyed in Moroccan media.