Prof. Alia Yunis and Prof. Dale Hudson will discuss the confluences of trade routes and media formats that have shaped Gulf media beyond mall cineplexes, based on the special double issue of Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, “Film and Visual Media in the Gulf,” which they co-edited and which has just been released.

Topics include tribal use of social media, the golden age of Kuwait television, videos produced by working-class and second-generation expatriates in UAE, transmission of banned Bombay films via Oman TV into Pakistan, the first early official photography in Kuwait by a Palestinian photographer, the explosion of original Malayalam media for the Gulf and Arabic-dubbed Hindi media, and the role of digital platforms as sites of debate. The journal developed from the Film and Visual Media in the Gulf Conference at the NYUAD Institute in 2018, an event that marked the last public interview with the late Kuwaiti director Khaled Al Siddiq, director of Bas ya bahar/Cruel Sea (1971), considered the first narrative feature by a Gulf national.

Speakers
Alia Yunis, Visiting Associate Professor of Film and Heritage Studies, NYUAD
Dale Hudson, Associate Teaching Professor of Film and New Media and Curator of Film and New Media, NYUAD

Moderated by
Laure Assaf, Assistant Professor of Arab Crossroads Studies and Anthropology, NYUAD