Spring 2021, CairoThematic Course

An Introduction to Popular Egyptian Cinema: Youth!

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Course details

Cycle: Spring 2021, Cairo
Length: 12 weeks
Format: Hybrid
Taught in: Note that for this course speaking knowledge of Arabic is needed as most of the films we'll watch do not have English subtitles. The readings will be in English and course discussions will—as needed—mix between the two.

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About the course

Looking at popular Egyptian cinema from the post-1952 period until the turn of the millennium, this course aims to situate a selected number of films socio-historically and aesthetically. Participants will gain fluency in the film’s unique language, both from a historical and a genre viewpoint. Classes will alternate between weeks where we closely read and situate films within their time period and weeks where we critique theoretical texts that analyse film form and language. Thematically, course participants will trace changes in Egyptian cinema’s portrayal of young people. By the end of the course, they will be able to describe and analyse formal choices made by filmmakers, understand a film form’s relationship to content, identify major social shifts that impacted narratives in contemporary Egyptian cinema.

Who teaches it

Nour El Safoury is an editor, teacher and film critic. She is editor and co-manager of Esmat—Publishing List together with designer Shahd El Sabbagh. Her writing has appeared in retrospective and exhibition catalogs as well as in Al-Film Magazine, and Mada Masr. Her current research interests are history of film publications, film archives and archival activation, and the intersections between film and other art forms. She holds a M.A. in Film Studies from King’s College London and a B.A. in Film and Media Studies from Johns Hopkins University.

Course flow

Showing 12 sessions

Sessions without a date

- Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying PracticesExcerpts. Ed. Stuart Hall, Jessica Evans, Sean Nixon.
- في الصيف لازم نحبFel Sayef Lazem Neheb. Mohammed Abd Elaziz, 1974.
- The Allegorical NationViola Shafik, in Popular Egyptian Cinema: Gender, Class, Nation.
- Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic ApparatusJean-Louis Baudry.
- Entertainment as UtopiaRichard Dyer, in Only Entertainment.
- شعبان تحت الصفرShaaban Taht El-Sefr. Henry Barakat, 1980.
- IntroductionWalter Armburst, in Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt.
- Who Blinked First?David Bordwell, in Poetics of Cinema.
- Visual Pleasure and Narrative CinemaLaura Mulvey.
- أيس كريم في جليمIce Cream Fe Gleam. Khairy Beshara, 1996.
- New Realism in Arab Cinema: The Defeat-Conscious CinemaNouri Bouzid, Shereen el Ezabi, Alif.
- Combative Cultural Politics: Film Art and Political Spaces in EgyptRaymond Baker, Alif.
- Griffith: The Frame, the FigureTom Gunning, ed. Thomas Elsaesser and Adam Barker, in Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative.
- A Dialectic Approach to Film FormSergei Eisenstein.
- Dramaturgy of Film FormSergei Eisenstein, from Film Form, 1929.
- Kino EyeDziga Vertov.
- TitoTarik Alarian, 2004.
- New Cinema, Commercial Cinema, and the Modernist Tradition in EgyptWalter Armburst, Alif.
- Stars as a Social PhenomenonRichard Dyer, Stars.
- A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film GenreRick Altman.
- Film Genre and the Genre FilmThomas Schatz.
- Poisonous RosesFawzi Saleh, 2018.
- Making Film in Egypt: How Labor, Technology and Mediation Shape the IndustryChihab El Khashab. Excerpts.
Readings TBD
In class
PresentationGuest Lecturer TBD