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Overture Maghrebi Women’s Transvergent Cinema
- Indiana University Press
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1 For over three decades now, women from the Maghreb (i.e., Algeria, Morocco,andTunisia)havedirecteduniquefilms,fullofculturalrevelationsandallusions .Thepurposeofthisbookistoshow,throughtheclose analysis of seven specific films as exemplars of Maghrebi women’s production (two Algerian, two Moroccan, and three Tunisian), how these directorshavedevelopedoriginal,innovativefilmiclanguages.Thestudy of two pioneering works, Assia Djebar’s Nuba nisa al djebel Shnua/La Nouba des Femmes du Mont Chénoua/The Nuba of the Women of Mount Chenoua (Algeria, 1978) and Farida Benlyazid’s Bab al-sama maftouh/ Une Porte sur le ciel/A Door to the Sky (Morocco, 1998), opens the way to the study of five much more recent films: Yamina Bachir-Chouikh’s Rachida (Algeria, 2002), Raja Amari’s As Sitaar al Ahmar/Satin rouge/ RedSatin(Tunisia,2002),NadiaElFani’sBedwinHacker(Tunisia,2002), YasmineKassari’sL’Enfantendormi/TheSleepingChild(Morocco,2004), and Selma Baccar’s Khochkhach/Fleur d’oubli/Flower of Oblivion (Tunisia , 2006). Most Maghrebi women directors have been trained in France and reside at the intersection of various cultural groups to which they can claim affiliation: for example, their gender, their ethnicity, their class, theireducation(perhapsinFrance,perhapselsewhere),theirlanguage(s) (Arabic,French,Tamazight,orother),theircitizenshipofanationinthe northern part of Africa, their affiliation to a region, history, and MusMaghrebi Women’s Transvergent Cinema Overture 2 Screens and Veils lim culture. Their transcultural position and agility allow them to craft unique images of their own despite two oppressive, patriarchal systems of representation of women: a global one derived from Hollywood and the traditional regional male one. This project answers three needs: the first is to study Maghrebi women’s films as a cohesive yet diverse body of work emanating from particularculturalconfluences;thesecond,tolearnfromtheirpractice/ praxis – rather than examining these films through a ready-made, at timesill-fitting,Westerntheoreticalframework;thethird,togivevisibilitytoMaghrebicinema (andinparticulartoMaghrebiwomen’scinema), often absent from studies in “African cinema”1 (usually sub-Saharan) or treated as a mere footnote in “Arabic cinema” (usually “Middle Eastern ”),2 and, recently, a subset of Mediterranean women’s cinema.3 This study frames its object in what is commonly called the Maghrebi “postcolonial” era and locus. This first chapter lays out the main entries into the topic, by mapping its territory, by critically evaluating the various theoreticaltools at our disposal, and by envisioning how this regional cinema can constitute a “cinema of transvergence,” that is, a cinemathattraversesvariousculturesandbothborrowsfromandresists the discourse that each of these cultures proposes. Finally, this overture traces regional cultural traditions and their influences on women’s narrative and discursive strategies. In the wake of the latter I hope to show how today’s filmmakers use the screen to project women-made images of women and play with the polysemy of the hijab. Mapping the Maghreb The Maghreb as Locus 1. al maghrib: literally, “where the sun sets,” “the West,” or “Morocco,” the westernmost country in North Africa. 2. “The Union of the Arab Maghreb”: North Africa minus Egypt (Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, united by a treaty ratified in Marrakech in 1989). 3. “Maghreb”: another term for “North Africa” (the former colonizers ’ name for the region) that comprises Morocco, Algeria, [3.234.143.63] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:34 GMT) Overture 3 and Tunisia united by a common official language, Arabic, and a still widely used second one, French (not forgetting the indigenous Berber languages spoken by various groups throughout the region). Geographically,letalonegeopolitically,thename“Maghreb”isthus fraughtwithambiguity.Forsome(asDönmez-Colinpointsout4 ),itcomprises Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. In my study, the Maghreb willdesignatetheregioncomprisingTunisia,Algeria,andMorocco,aregion under Berber, Arabic, and French cultural influence, on the western margins of the Muslim world centered on Mecca. Away from al mashreq, thesacredEastofMecca,andtheGulf(whichwecallthe“MiddleEast”), it might be considered the outlying post of the “Arabo-Muslim” world – a term that is relentlessly used (and abused) as a vague and monolithic construct to encompass a large diverse and complicated region.5 Beyond languages (neighboring Arabic dialects, Tamazight – Berber languages – and French), history (in which French colonial occupation played a crucial role), and religion (illustrated by the soundscape of the muezzin’s call five times a day), these three Maghrebi nations also share a similar visual landscape (the lush, green shores to the north, and the Sahara desert to the south), ways of life, economic circumstances, and authoritarian political regimes. Furthermore, as we shall see, they share a history of filmmaking that attempted to give each newly independent nation its grand récit (something that Mauretania or Libya, for instance, do not share). TunisianfilmprofessorandcriticTaharChikhaouiseesinthename “Maghreb” a significant clue to the identity malaise of...