25 - Cinema and television in the Arab world

Summary

Markets for cinema and television in the Muslim world are fragmented linguistically, historically and geographically, hence a meaningful treatment of the entire Muslim world is impossible here. The scale of production is vast. Film industries in several Muslim countries have produced thousands of titles since the 1920s. Television production takes place on a larger and equally disconnected scale. The Arabic-speaking world itself has not been a market or unit of content production for audiovisual materials during most of the past century. It is really only since the 1990s that a semi-coherent market for Arabic-language audiovisual content has taken shape through the medium of satellite television broadcasting, which increasingly converges with the internet.

Cinema

Arabic-language films are of three types: co-productions financed by European film and television companies, films financed and produced by states and commercial films. The categories are not mutually exclusive. ‘Arab cinema’ is a category of film festivals in Europe and the United States, and of publishing. But there has never been a common market or consistent cultural forum in which films from all Arab nations circulate. Co-productions are linked by common European sources of funding, but Arab ‘national cinemas’ have no more to do with each other than do the national cinemas of the United States, Australia and Britain.