Firat Oruc | Petro-Documentaries & Colonial Anxiety Over Gulf Cinema

Kawalis | Cinema, Television & Theater from the Arab World

In this last episode in 3 Kawalis podcast special zooming in on cinema in the Gulf, Alia Younis hosts associate professor of Culture and Politics at Georgetown Qatar, Firat Oruc, to explore the history of cinema in the Arab Gulf region. Firat delves into the colonial emergence of cinema in the 1930s, highlighting the peculiar British regulations and colonial anxieties tied to film exposure. The discussion covers the significant role of oil companies in establishing cinemas, producing petro-documentaries aimed at showcasing their version of development and modernization. Firat shares his journey of discovering archival documents that shed light on the historical and contemporary aspects of Gulf cinema. Join us as we uncover how cinema has been a powerful force in shaping cultural and political narratives in the Gulf.
00:00 Introduction
01:58 The Colonial Era of Gulf Cinema
03:41 Archival Discoveries and Colonial Anxieties
04:26 Colonial Anxiety around Cinema Arrival
11:23 Censorship and the Introduction of Cinema
23:46 The Role of Oil Companies in Gulf Cinema
28:51 Petro-Documentaries and Nation Building
40:00 The Influence of Television and Radio
47:30 Personal Journey into Gulf Cinema History
49:02 Future Research Directions
Firat Oruc is an associate professor of Culture and Theory at Georgetown University and is currently working on two book projects: one on world literature and the making of modern Turkey, and the other on the cultural and political history of film in the Arabian Peninsula. He is the editor of Sites of Pluralism: Community Politics in the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2019) and co-editor of Indian Ocean Literary Circularities (Duke University Press, 2022). He is also the author of journal articles that have appeared in Comparative Literature, Film History, HAWWA: Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World, Journal of World Literature, Criticism, Postcolonial Text, and English Language Notes. At GU-Q, he is co-lead of the Energy Humanities Research Initiative at the Center for International and Regional Studies and Director of the Certificate in Media and Politics program. He is the recipient of research grants from the Qatar National Research Fund, the Doyle Engaging Difference Program, and the Teaching, Learning, and Innovation Summer Institute. He has served as a visiting assistant professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Comparative Literary Studies program at Northwestern University. Professor Oruc received his Ph.D. in literature from Duke University.
Hosted by Alia Yunis 👉 https://www.instagram.com/alia__yunis/
Alia Yunis is a writer, journalist and filmmaker. She is also a visiting associate professor of film and heritage studies at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi.
Theme music: Peninsular, Tarek Yamani 🔊 https://spoti.fi/47I59ns
#GulfCinema #ArabFilms #afikraKawalis #FiratOruc #AliaYunis #Colonialism

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