It is structured geographically and chronologically, with individual chapters focusing on Egypt’s Ateyyat El Abnoudy, Lebanon’s Jocelyne Saab, Tunisia’s Selma Baccar, Algeria’s Assia Djebar, Palestine’s Mai Masri, Morocco’s Izza Génini and Syria’s Hala Alabdallah Yaktoub. Negotiating Dissidence dialogues with the above books, but also charts new territory by foregrounding and analysing the work of seven well- and lesser-known women documentary filmmakers originating from the Mediterranean coast of the Arab world.
It is a refreshing, timely and welcome contribution to the relatively small and disparate body of work on Arab women filmmakers, which includes important texts like Gönül Dönmez-Colin’s Women, Islam and Cinema (2004), Rebecca Hillauer’s Encyclopaedia of Arab Women Filmmakers (2005), and Viola Shafik’s Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity (2007). Underpinned by significant archival work, Stefanie Van De Peer’s fascinating and informative book, Negotiating Dissidence: The Pioneering Women of Arab Documentary, goes a long way to redressing this imbalance by bringing the films of a number of pioneering women documentarists from the Arab world to light. However, women documentarists from the Arab world remain largely unknown and their films continue to be the subject of very little academic or popular attention. Contemporary fiction filmmakers like Nadine Labaki and Haafia Al-Mansour have been commercially successful outside of their own national and regional contexts. However, in recent years, the advent of more transnational viewing practices, combined with the emergence of a new generation of highly successful Arab women directors, has started to shift the status quo. Arab women filmmakers have been under-examined in academic and popular spheres. 238 Kaya Davies Hayonĭespite their rich history, Arab films, in particular those made by women, have not received the international attention they deserve. Negotiating Dissidence: The Pioneering Women of Arab Documentary, by
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