In 1972, filmmakers and critics from across the Arab world met in Damascus at the first young filmmakers film festival where they coined the term al-sinima al-badilah (alternative cinema) and attempted to define what that cinema might be. “Alternative cinema” was just one term that filmmakers, critics, and activists used during the 1970s and 1980s to describe a new type of filmmaking they hoped to create, one that saw itself as a serious art form and force for political and social good, rather than a form of entertainment motivated by profit. In this talk Nadia Yaqub will summarize the debates surrounding this initiative as a first step in tracing the transnational film history of this period.

Speaker
Nadia Yaqub, Senior Humanities Research Fellow, NYUAD

Moderated by
Dale Hudson, Associate Teaching Professor of Film and New Media and Curator of Film and New Media