Chiefly short biographies and filmographies.

In this landmark dictionary, Roy Armes details the scope and diversity of filmmaking across the Arab Middle East. Listing more than 550 feature films by more than 250 filmmakers, and short and documentary films by another 900 filmmakers, this volume covers the film production in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and the Gulf States. An introduction by Armes locates film and filmmaking traditions in the region from early efforts in the silent era to state-funded productions by isolated filmmakers and politically engaged documentarians. Part 1 lists biographical information about the filmmakers and their feature films. Part 2 details key feature films from the countries represented. Part 3 indexes feature-film titles in English and French with details about the director, date, and country of origin.

As early as 1909, African Americans were utilizing the new medium of cinema to catalogue the world around them, using the film camera as a device to capture their lives and their history. The daunting subject of race and ethnicity permeated life in America at the turn of the twentieth century and due to the effect of certain early films, specific television images, and an often-biased news media, it still plagues us today. As new technologies bring the power of the moving image to the masses, African Americans will shoot and edit on laptop computers and share their stories with a global audience via the World Wide Web. These independently produced visions will add to the diverse cache of African American images being displayed on an ever-expanding silver screen. This wide range of stories, topics, views, and genres will finally give the world a glimpse of African American life that has long been ignored and has yet to be seen. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of African American Cinema covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1400 cross-referenced entries on actors, actresses, movies, producers, organizations, awards, and terminology, this book provides a better understanding of the role African Americans played in film history. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about African American cinema.

A comprehensive introduction to North African film.

Intended as a guide to the filmmakers and films of the African cinema, this reference book also provides the framework for understanding the history and development of African film with respect to its situation in world cinema. The goals and achievements of African film are studied with respect to the forces that impact it, such as colonialism and racism. The importance of the creative efforts of African filmmakers and the diversity of their approaches to cinema are explored. Examined as well are the views of Africa presented by European colonial filmmakers, views often contested in contemporary African film. The listings include critical analysis, bio-bibliography, and filmographies. Both Saharan and sub-Saharan films are included. As an important reference to African film, the information outlined is valuable due to the current lack of researched data on African cinema, in part as a result of postcolonial attitudes on production and distribution. The book concentrates on films and directors who work toward defining a unique, African perspective without compromising thematic concerns due to commercial considerations. The research detailed in this text should encourage a wider appreciation of the film work being done in Africa, especially to those without the benefit of access to specialized libraries and collections.

Black women filmmakers not only deserve an audience, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster asserts, but it is also imperative that their voices be heard as they struggle against Hollywood’s constructions of spectatorship, ownership, and the creative and distribution aspects of filmmaking. Foster provides a voice for Black and Asian women in the first detailed examination of the works of six contemporary Black and Asian women filmmakers. She also includes a detailed introduction and a chapter entitled "Other Voices," documenting the work of other Black and Asian filmmakers. Foster analyzes the key films of Zeinabu irene Davis, "one of a growing number of independent Black women filmmakers who are actively constructing [in the words of bell hooks] ‘an oppositional gaze’"; British filmmaker Ngozi Onwurah and Julie Dash, two filmmakers working with time and space; Pratibha Parmar, a Kenyan/Indian-born British Black filmmaker concerned with issues of representation, identity; cultural displacement, lesbianism, and racial identity; Trinh T. Minh-ha, a Vietnamese-born artist who revolutionized documentary filmmaking by displacing the "voyeuristic gaze of the ethnographic documentary filmmaker"; and Mira Nair, a Black Indian woman who concentrates on interracial identity.

Written by experts in the field, this dictionary covers all aspects of film studies, including terms, concepts, debates, and movements in film theory and criticism, national, international and transnational cinemas, film history, film movements and genres, film industry organizations and practices, and key technical terms and concepts in 500 detailed entries. Most entries also feature recommendations for further reading and a large number also have web links. The web links are listed and regularly updated on a companion website that complements the printed book. The dictionary is international in its approach, covering national cinemas, genres, and film movements from around the world such as the Nouvelle Vague, Latin American cinema, the Latsploitation film, Bollywood, Yiddish cinema, the spaghetti western, and World cinema. The most up-to-date dictionary of its kind available, this is a must-have for all students of film studies and ancillary subjects, as well as an informative read for cinephiles and for anyone with an interest in films and film criticism.