Subject Librarian
Dartmouth College
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Keeping up with the journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for a national or regional cinema? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's you can download and read the articles you want.
You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.
Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's now available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.
Introduction
This guide highlights library resources for Palestinian film. The guide also incorporates resources originally on William Fontaine's guide for Palestinian film. There were duplications between my guide and his. However, he did highlight film titles, directors and formats in his guide. Thanks to Bill!
The Holy Land was a popular subject for early cinema travelogues and actualities, and the consolidation of the region under British colonial control from 1922 was facilitated by British documentary filmmakers; documentary was also a preferred form for Jewish settlers (see israel, film in). Local film production can be traced back to Palestinian filmmaker Ibrahim Hassan Firhan, who filmed the 1935 visit to Jerusalem of the Prince of Saud, and the first Palestinian feature film is usually claimed to be Holiday Eve (1945), directed by Ahmed Hilmi al-Kilani. Imports from Egypt were popular in the first half of the 20th century, but cinemagoing was not as widespread as in other Arab countries. The 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the experience of Naqba (a term meaning ‘disaster’ that Palestinians use to refer to their exile from their homeland) severely retarded film production, leading to a twenty-year ‘epoch of silence’ during which time no Palestinian films were produced.
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Palestine, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 24 May. 2021
Searching the online catalog
You can use the subject heading below to find resources in the online catalog. The call number range is also included.
- motion pictures palestinecall number range PN 1993.5 .P35 on Baker Level 4.
Please note: these are not the only call number ranges, but they have the majority of items. - motion pictures arab countriesCall number range PN 1993.5 .A65.
- motion pictures middle eastCall number range PN 1993.5 .M638 on Baker Level 4.
Introductory reading(s)
The cinema of North Africa and the Middle East by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .A35 C523 2007ISBN: 9781905674114The Cinema of North Africa and the Middle East contains twenty-four essays, each concerning an individual film from Morocco all the way to Iran. The volume explores not only the established film cultures of Turkey, Egypt, and Israel, but also the nascent cinemas of Palestine and Syria. ...
Companion encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North African film by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780415187039The Companion Encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North African Film is a unique, one volume work which illuminates a fascinating variety of cinema which is little known outside its own area. The Encyclopedia is divided into nine chapters, each written by a leading scholar in the field. Each chapter covers the history and major issues of film within that area, as well as providing bibliographies of the leading films, directors and actors. ...
Dreams of a nation: [on Palestinian cinema] by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .P35 D74 2006ISBN: 9781844670888Over the last quarter-century, Palestinian cinema has emerged as a major artistic force on the global scene. Deeply rooted in the historic struggles for national self-determination, this cinema is the single most important artistic expression of a much-maligned people. In Dreams of a Nation, filmmakers, critics and scholars discuss the extraordinary social and artistic significance of Palestinian film. It is the only volume of its kind in any language.
Encyclopedia of Arab women filmmakers by Call Number: Baker-Berry Ref. PN 1998.2 .H5513 2005ISBN: 9789774249433Arab women filmmakers: Who are they? What drives them? What are their experiences in a male-dominated profession? How do they function within the contexts--and constraints--of patriarchal societies? The answers are complex and sometimes surprising, as complex and surprising as the vastly different films these women direct. In this unprecedented book, Rebecca Hillauer assembles a comprehensive and penetrating look into the history of Arab women's filmmaking, as well as the political and social background of the countries--Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Algeria, among others--from which these artists emerged.In addition to the biographies, filmographies, and discussions of their most important works, lively, in-depth interviews allow us to hear from the filmmakers themselves. ...
Selected book titles
Israel before Israel: silent cinema in the Holy Land by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.75 .T79 1995This volume surveys the history of the silent cinema as it was developed in Ottoman and British Mandatory Palestine. It explores the political motivations and methods behind many of the productions, the main personalities involved and the many plans that were never realized.
Palestinian cinema: landscape, trauma and memory by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.3 .P35 G47 2008ISBN: 9780253220073Although in recent years the entire world has been increasingly concerned with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there are few truly reliable sources of information about Palestinian society and culture. One of the best sources for understanding Palestinian culture is the cinema, which has strived to delineate Palestinian history and to portray the daily lives of Palestinian men, women, and children. Here, an Israeli and a Palestinian scholar, in a rare and welcome collaboration, follow the development of Palestinian cinema, commenting on its response to political and social transformations. ...
Palestinian literature and film in postcolonial feminist perspective by Call Number: Baker-Berry PJ 8190 .P3 B35 2012ISBN: 9780203098660Palestinian Literature and Film in Postcolonial Feminist Perspective is the first sustained study of gender-consciousness in the Palestinian creative imagination. Drawing on concepts from postcolonial feminist theory, Ball analyses a range of literary and filmic works by major creative practitioners including Michel Khleifi , Liana Badr, Annemarie Jacir, Elia Suleiman, Mona Hatoum and Suheir Hammad, and reveals a hitherto unrecognized trajectory in gender-consciousness under development in the Palestinian imagination from the start of the twentieth century. ...
The rhetoric of violence: Arab-Jewish encounters in contemporary Palestinian literature and film by Call Number: Baker-Berry PJ 7519 .J4 A233 2005ISBN: 9781403964052Despite the urgent need to develop understandings of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the light of the current situation in the Middle East, the role of violence and reconciliation in Palestinian and Israeli literature and film has received only brief treatment. This book is intended to fill that void; that is to explore how Israelis and Palestinians view and depict themselves and each other in situations that lead to either violence or reconciliation, and the ways in which both parties define themselves in relation to one another. The book examines selected Palestinian and Israeli literary works and a small number of films and their tacit assumptions about Israeli Jews. ...
Ten Arab Filmmakers: political dissent and social critique by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780253016522Ten Arab Filmmakers provides an up-to-date overview of the best of Arab cinema, offering studies of leading directors and in-depth analyses of their most important films. The filmmakers profiled here represent principal national cinemas of the Arab world--Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Syria.
Other library resource(s)
Israeli cinema from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286Scholarship on Zionist and Israeli cinema is in agreement as to the major periods and movements in this corpus. During the prestate period, and especially after the 1920s, the Zionist movement used cinema to propagate Zionist ideology and to gather financial and political support. Following the 1948 independence of the State of Israel, and during the 1950s and 1960s, Israeli films continued to comply with the Zionist master-narrative.- Transnational and diasporic cinema from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286Although from the earliest years film production, marketing, and reception involved extensive national border crossing, the rubric “transnational cinema” has emerged only comparatively recently. Taken up from other disciplines such as anthropology and migration and postcolonial studies, the concept of “transnational” in this still-emerging area of cinema studies remains highly varied, pointing to sometimes contested working definitions and analytic approaches.
Finding journal articles
Our collection does not have journals that cover Palestinian cinema exclusively. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles or use the search box at the top of the page.
Film & television literature index by Call Number: Electronic resourceUse this index to find articles about this national cinema.
Screen studies collection by Call Number: Electronic resourceA comprehensive survey of current publications related to film scholarship alongside detailed filmographies. This collection includes the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database and the detailed and complementary filmographies created by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the British Film Institute.
The web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Palestinian films in our collections
See this list of Palestinian films.
Internet resource(s)
There are Palestine Film Festivals in major cities across the country. Just do a Google search and you will find one nearest you.
- Palestine Film FoundationThe Palestine Film Foundation is a nonprofit initiative which seeks to develop an audience for and to encourage the development of a Palestinian cinema and cinema related to Palestine.
