Documenting Syria: Film-making, Video Activism and Revolution

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Syria is now one of the most important countries in the world for the documentary film industry. Since the 1970s, Syrian cinema masters played a defining role in avant-garde filmmaking and political dissent against authoritarianism. After the outbreak of violence in 2011, an estimated 500,000 video clips were uploaded making it one of the first YouTubed revolutions in history. This book is the first history of documentary filmmaking in Syria. Based on extensive media ethnography and in-depth interviews with Syrian filmmakers in exile, the book offers an archival analysis of the documentary work by masters of Syrian cinema, such as Nabil Maleh, Ossama Mohammed, Mohammed Malas, Hala Al Abdallah, Hanna Ward, Ali Atassi and Omar Amiralay. Joshka Wessels traces how the works of these filmmakers became iconic for a new generation of filmmakers at the beginning of the 21st century and maps the radical change in the documentary landscape after the revolution of 2011. Special attention is paid to the late Syrian filmmaker and pro-democracy activist, Bassel Shehadeh, and the video-resistance from Aleppo and Raqqa against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic State. An essential resource for scholars of Syrian Studies, this book will also be highly relevant to the fields of media & conflict research, anthropology and political science.

Reviews

Wessels brings a filmmakers eye and an anthropologists sensibility to this landmark examination of Syrian documentaries and their creators ... Writing from decades of deep engagement, Wessels shatters the myth that the Syrian uprisings explosion of dissident culture emerged from a creative void. -- Christa Salamandra, Professor of Anthropology, Lehman College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA
This extraordinary and deeply researched study connects the documentary video productions of the Syrian revolution with antecedents produced under the punishing eye of two Assad regimes ... Documenting Syria makes an essential contribution to the cultural history of the Syrian revolution and demands international attention to the regimes crimes against humanity and the peoples courage, resilience and creativity. -- miriam cooke, Braxton Craven Professor of Arab Cultures, Duke University, USA
An excellent exploration of a neglected form of filmmaking from a country whose amazing cultural production has historically been repressed and is currently neglected Wessels book offers a sensitive and knowledgeable insight into contemporary developments in Syrias transnational and networked cultural production. -- Stefanie van de Peer, University of Glasgow, UK

Author Bio

Josepha Ivanka (Joshka) Wessels is Senior Lecturer in Communication for Development with the School of Arts and Communication (K3) at Malm University in Sweden and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Syrian Studies at the University of St Andrews. She has a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Amsterdam and has carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Copenhagen and Lund University. Until 2012 she was a documentary filmmaker and consultant on the MENA region, with her work being broadcast on the BBC and Al Jazeera English.