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In the Clement Society of Cinema
Between the ardor of militants and passions of aesthetes, a retrospective visit to the golden era of ciné-clubs in the Arab world
A special issue of ArteNews edited by Daikha Dridi and Rasha Salti.
Click Here to View or Add Comments on the Issue
There was a time in the contemporary history of Arab world, a mere forty or thirty years ago, when the passion for non-commercial cinema and the yearning for critical engagement with art and culture and the search for venues for an unhindered and open political discussion inspired the formation of ciné-clubs. These cultural spaces drew significant membership and transformed into vivacious realms for a dialogue with world cinema and politically-engaged art. Some of these ciné-clubs were admitedly guises for political parties to mobilize a constituency, but in the end, films were screened, and people's imaginary enriched with characters stories and images, and innovative ways of telling stories, representing daily lives and history with a capital H.
As autocratic régimes strengthened their iron grip on freedom of expression, political pluralism and subversion, these ciné-clubs became regarded as renegade loci for dissent. They were either forcibly shut-down by governments, or voluntarily disbanded by their instigators lest they be coopted. They played a key role in introducing generations of filmmakers and cinéphiles at large (students, workers and everyday folk) to the works of masters such as Eisenstein, Antonioni, Fellini, Lelouch, Wajda and Godard, to name a few. They also played a key role in shaping the political identity of generations of cinéphiles. This special issue of ArteNews is dedicated to unearthing the memory of these informal institutions whose history has received almost no attention. It also aims to pay homage to those behind these magnificent ventures.
Our aim is to provide venue and exposure for critical writing about film culture, encourage writing and criticism but also the importance of cinema in society.
The issue will include texts from filmmaker Nigol Bezjian (Aleppo), writers Omar Zelig (Algiers), Shawki Amari (Algiers) and Raja Shehadeh (Ramallah), interviews with ciné-club founders Omar Amiralay (Damascus), Aziz Mihrab (Casablanca), Jean-Pierre Goux Pelletan (Beirut), Walid Chmeit (Beirut), Chafia Djemame (Constantine), Said Benmerad (Algiers), Mustapha Darwish (Cairo), Abdallah Eyyaf (Saudi Arabia) as well as filmmaker Moncef Dhouib (Tunis). |
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Introduction (English/Français)
Daikha Dridi introduces the special issue.
In the 1960s, 1970s, and sometimes until the 1980s, almost all big Arab cities lived a spectacular infatuation with ciné-clubs. In the Maghreb especially, many of these ciné-clubs were founded by militants affiliated to leftist political organizations, with the intention to create spaces for free expression and activism otherwise forbidden in conventional realms by the regimes at rule. Elsewhere, in Beirut, Damascus or Cairo, ciné-clubs were founded by film critics or filmmakers, often themselves politically engaged, who wanted to establish spaces for free expression and discussion, and a realm alternative to counter commercial movie theaters and the prevalence of mainstream American and Egyptian films. In as much as it seemed once widespread and thriving, this phenomenon seems to have disappeared without a trace today, almost as if by mystery. Version originale en français disponible en pdf et texte plat, cliquer sur le lien ci-dessus (titre) |
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Film Schools Have Replaced Ciné-Clubs in Today's Lebanon
Daikha Dridi interviews veteran Lebanese film critic and essayist Walid Chmeit, a founding member of the Beirut Arab Ciné-Club.
A film critic since his young age, Walid Chmeit was among the founders of one of Beirut’s most important ciné-clubs, the Beirut Arab Ciné-Club, that closed down because of the civil war. From Paris, where he has settled for good, he revisits what he recalls as “a marvelous experience”. Version originale en français disponible en pdf, cliquer sur le lien ci-dessus (titre) |
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In Memory of Esther: Cinema Dunia
By Raja Shehadeh
Raja Shehadeh is a lawyer, writer and novelist who lives and works in Ramallah. He published a memoir, Strangers in the House, in 2002 and When the Bulbul Stopped Singing in 2004, adapted to the theater and performed in Edinburgh, Tehran, New York and Amman. His most recent book is Palestinian Walks, Notes on a Vanishing Landscape (2007). |
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Nadi al-Sinama in Damascus, or when Cinema Wielded Power to Threaten the Social Order
Rasha Salti interviews Omar Amiralay, veteran Syrian filmmaker and founding member of the Damascus Ciné-club.
His upright –almost stiff– countenance notwithstanding, Omar Amiralay recounts, barely repressing a bittersweet inflexion, the story of Nadi al-Sinama, or the Damascus Ciné-club that ended abruptly with gorvernment intervention. With echoes of an underground intrigue, the ciné-club conspired to screen the vanguard and marvelous and stubbornly challenged government. Version originale en français disponible en pdf, cliquer sur le lien ci-dessus (titre) |
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Dispatch from Omar Zelig
By Omar Zelig*, a regular commentator in Algerian newspapers.
One sure way of sounding like an old fart to younger generations of Algerians, is to keep reminiscing about the good old days when you could still go to the movies in Algiers, before the wide spread of video and satellite television in the end of the 1980s.
Considering the handful of surviving movie theaters now serve as shelters to more or less solitary lovers and cohorts of listless and unemployed boys, it is tedious to explain there was a time, not so long ago, when one could casually discover images of the world, at least those the authorities –guardians of moral rectitude– deemed beneficial for us to see.
In spite of extreme prudery regarding anything that related to representation of sexuality, the spectrum of possibilities was still vast, including Italian comedies, Le détachement féminin rouge, Ingmar Bergman films, Youssef Chahine films, Brazilian cinema novo, Walt Disney flicks, French auteur films, militant films from all over the world, and even a relatively impressive national roster that, aside from the unavoidable propaganda reels, contained some small cult gems like Mohamed Zinet’s Tahia ya Didou. Version originale en français disponible en pdf, cliquer sur le lien ci-dessus (titre) |
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Murmur in a Giraffe’s Ear
Writer, producer and director Nigol Bezjian was born in Aleppo, graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York and UCLA Film and Television. He has directed several films, including Hour of the Grey Hourse, Chickpeas, Muron.
A long time ago the Syrian Baathist government nationalized cultural institutions, swiftly placing the iron noose around their necks. I must have been 14 years old when I woke up one morning to found the Cinema Orient (Cinema Al-Sharq) moniker covered with a white canvas that read, in red Arabic letters, Cinema al-Kindi. I’d never heard of al-Kindi before and the Arabic script could’ve translated to The Kennedy Cinema or al-Kanady (meaning Canadian) Cinema. What a paradox, I remember thinking... |
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“We Screened Films that Would Have Never Been Allowed in to Big Theaters.”
Daikha Dridi interviews Jean-Pierre Goux Pelletan, a veteran film critic in Lebanon and one of the founding members of the Beirut Ciné-club.
At 88 years and a few specs ("but don’t write down specs”, he prompted me laughing), Jean-Pierre Goux Pelletan tried to resurrect recollections of the years in the 1960s and 1970s when the Beirut Ciné-Club drew hundreds of members each week. The war brought the adventure to an end but Goux Pelletan continued to write on cinema in the Lebanese press, until the moment he had to leave Beirut a little over a year ago, because of illness. From Montpellier in France, he traveled back those years for us. Version originale en français disponible en pdf, cliquer sur le lien ci-dessus (titre) |
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In Saudi Arabia, Ciné-clubs Are Struggles of the Present
Daikha Dridi interviews Abdallah Eyyaf, filmmaker, founder of an itinerant ciné-club in Saudi Arabia.
Abdallah el-Eyyaf, a mere thirty-years old, is a mechanical engineer at Aramco. He is also a filmmaker and soldiering on for the establishment of a ciné-club in Riyadhh. He, along with some forty fellow passionate cinephiles, succeeded in presenting publicly and officially their ciné-club hereto with dwelling in the underground. The ‘outing’ lasted a mere handful weeks. He bitterly recalls the experience, but miraculously, it has not deterred his optimism. If stories of ciné-clubs belong to the recent history in the Arab world, in Saudi Arabia, they belong to the future, affirms Eyyaf with assurance. Version originale en français disponible en pdf, cliquer sur le lien ci-dessus (titre) |
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The Story of Constantine's Ciné-Club, a Cinema to Claim their Own
Daikha Dridi interviews Chafia Djemame, founder of the Women’s Ciné-club in Constantine, Algeria.
While barely in her thirties, when Chafia Djemame founded the Women’s Ciné-club with friends from Algerian universities, they were surrounded by young women so young they affectionately referred to her and group of friends as middle-aged. From Jijel, an eastern port city, Chafia recounts the adventure of the ciné-club in the 1980s, in the heart of Constantine, one of the most conservative cities of the country. Version originale en français disponible en pdf, cliquer sur le lien ci-dessus (titre) |
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At the Movies, (Real) Love Reigns Supreme
By Chawki Amari
Birds hide to make love. In some of the movie theaters in the center of Algiers, young couples meet in the darkness of theaters to share very adventurous embraces. A cinematic dive in the world of love in the dark. Chawki Amari is a celebrated columnist and cartoonist at the al-Watan newspaper in Algeria. Version originale en français disponible en pdf, cliquer sur le lien ci-dessus (titre) |
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In the 1970s, the Entirety of World Cinema with Leftist Coloring Passed through Algiers
Daikha Dridi interviews Saïd Benmerad, founder and director of several ciné-clubs in Algiers.
From Algiers, where he continues to teach literature at the university, Saïd Benmerad revisits the singular world of ciné-clubs that prevailed in the years that followed the Algerian revolution. He was twenty years old, a cinephile and militant on the extreme left in a city that saw itself as a light-house of anti-imperialism, passionate about politics and cinema with equal fervor. Version originale en français disponible en pdf, cliquer sur le lien ci-dessus (titre) |
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"Ah, Nostalgia, Nostalgia..."
Daikha Dridi interviews Aziz Mihrab, founder of ciné-clubs in Casablanca and history teacher.
Aziz Mihrab established and animated ciné-clubs as a trotskyite militant in Casablanca’s popular neighborhoods in the 1970s and 1980s. At 54 years of age today, he chose to sit in favorite café in Sidi Dernoussi, where on occasion he still screens films, to recall the years of militancy and cinéphilia. Version originale en français disponible en pdf, cliquer sur le lien ci-dessus (titre) |
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"I went to the Ciné-Club to Hang Around Pretty Rich Girls"
Daikha Dridi interviews Moncef Dhouib, filmmaker living and working in Tunisia.
Incisive, corrosive, Moncef Dhouib recalls the glory days of ciné-clubs in Tunisia with humor and sobriety far from lyricism and nostalgia. Before he became a filmmaker in his own right, Moncef Dhouib was a cinephile, founder and animator of ciné-clubs as well as president of the federation of ciné-clubs in Tunisia. At 55 years of age, he revisits this chapter in his life and the political and cultural history of Tunisia without a hint of effusion, quite to the contrary… |
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The Unrelenting Battle of a Censor Against Censorship
Daikha Dridi interviews Mustafa Darwish, judge by profession and occasional film critic, a veteran founder of ciné-clubs in Cairo, who once held the position of censor.
Until this day, Mustafa Darwish remains a critic and judge of cinema. In the 1960s, off and on, he was the very atypical director of the censorship unit at the Ministry of Culture, as well as the unhappy founder of several ciné-clubs in Cairo. He revisits for us a nearly 50 years long experience, that can be summarized in a race against obstacles… |
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