Cinema of the Middle East

Middle Eastern cinema collectively refers to the film industries of West Asia and part of North Africa. By definition, it encompasses the film industries of Egypt, Iran, Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. As such, the film industries of these countries are also part of the cinema of Asia, or in the case of Egypt, Africa. Cairo has been the capital of film industry in the Middle East since the early 20th century to the present day.
Since the inception of cinema in Europe and the United States, many people assumed that cinema in the Middle East arrived much later than Western Cinema. However, it was found that cinema was brought into most of the Arab countries by the beginning of the 20th century, particularly in Egypt in 1896, by Pathé Frères or the Lumière Brothers. Eventually since the 1950s Egyptian cinema was and still is the main dominating Arab and Middle Eastern film industry and this led to many other Middle Eastern countries incorporating Egyptian conventions into their own films.
Each Middle Eastern country has a different and distinctive culture of cinema which differs in both history and infrastructure. The historical component includes key events and trigger points which led to the inception or emergence of cinema in the Middle East. The infrastructural component defines the current institution and/or systems in place which facilitate the financing/development/exhibition of cinema, locally or internationally.

Arab countries

Bahrain

The first cinema to be established in Bahrain consisted of a makeshift cinema set up in a cottage in 1922, with the first official cinema set up in 1937. Several more were established in the 1950s and 1960s, and the Bahrain Cinema and Film Distribution Company began operating in 1967, which was renamed the Bahrain Cinema Company in 1976. There are now a number of modern-style cinemas in Bahrain, including the 20-screen complex in Bahrain City Centre..

Egypt

History of the industry

Egypt's history of film started a few months following the Lumière Brothers' first film screening in Europe. In 1896, their film was taken to Egypt and was screened exclusively to a group of Egyptians in the Schneider Baths, Alexandria. A year later in the same city, the Cinematographe Lumière, was opened and had recurring screenings of the films. Egypt was one of the few countries of the Arab world and Middle East to be able to establish a film industry during their colonization. However, the types of films that were shot in Egypt at the time were more direct-cinema-styled documentaries or news reels. Eventually, they did more news reels and also began creating short films. In 1906, Felix Mesguich, who worked for the Lumière Brothers, went to Egypt to film a short film on his camera for them.
The film-viewing audience in Egypt kept growing until in 1908 there were a total of eleven movie theaters in the country. One of the French theaters brought in a camera and photographer to create local news reels to play exclusively in their own theater to compete with the other theaters. With this growing interest in film, Italian investors opened STICA film company in the city that was to be the hub of film, Alexandria, in 1917. Eventually, they shut down due to their low-quality films and the unfamiliarity of the producers with the Egyptian environment. One of the three films they created featured verses from the Muslim Qur'an vertically inverted which led it to being banned by government officials. Furthermore, their films had Italian actors and directors which did not help their case. With time, more films and newsreels were created. In 1926, the Lebanese Lama brothers came back from Argentina with their cameras and began creating Western-styled films in the deserts of Egypt. Up until that point, Egyptians had not been happy that most of the films that were created were not done by Egyptians and featured Western actors in an Egyptian setting.
Finally, the film Laila was vastly popular because it was produced by an Egyptian theater actress, Aziza Amir, and features a narrative that was familiar to most Egyptian audiences. Therefore, this film was considered by many the first Egyptian film and was the first film to be produced by a woman. This marked the beginning of the national cinema in Egypt. Following this there was a peak in Egyptian film production. "From 1927 to 1930 two full-length films were produced a year, five films were released in 1931 and six in both 1933 and 1934". Although all these films were created independently, in 1935, Studio Misr was founded and was followed by six more studios from 1936 to 1948. Studio Misr did not dominate the industry, but was one of the big factors that launched Egyptian cinema.
During this time, Egypt was the strongest Arab and Middle Eastern country that made films, which many other countries in the Middle East looked up to. Some of the Arab countries would attempt to copy the Egyptian melodramatic formulas and would make the film in the Egyptian dialect. With time, there were many changes that led many Egyptian filmmakers to start gradually making their movies in Lebanon instead. First, the Egyptian revolution of 1952 made it less stable politically in Egypt. Second, the nationalization of the film industry in Egypt slowly brought more restrictions to the films until the film censorship laws that were issued in 1976. The Egyptian presence in Lebanon impacted the Lebanese film output. Between 1963 and 1970, half of the movies that were produced in Lebanon were in the Egyptian dialect.
Eventually, the Egyptians moved back to Egypt due to the civil war in Lebanon. Following the censorship in Egypt, there was an increased sense of morality and modesty on screen. These constraints led a change in film movements from romance and love stories to new realist and melodramatic realism. This wave impacted many of the films from today. According to Ibrahim Farghali, an Egyptian journalist, "To me, the Egypt of today seems influenced by the '68 movement in its call for change, the surmounting of traditional values, and liberation from oppression, whether political, social, ethical, or religious".
More recently, the film The Square which was a documentary about the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. It was also nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Film. Although Egypt's film industry is not as powerful as it was before due to growing financial issues, it still dominates the Arab Cinema output especially in mainstream cinema where it outputs up to 77% of the films. That is because of an already established ecosystem for Egyptian cinema that saw its rise in the 1960s. Today, it includes leading regional players such as the distribution company MAD solutions. In addition to that, Egypt hosts a variety of film festivals which help sustain the local film culture, including notable regional festivals such as the El Gouna Film Festival, which boasts an impressive lineup of stars every year.

Directors and films

Notable Directors	Notable Films	Notes
Mohammed Karim	Zaynab	First Egyptian feature film.
Yousef Chahine	Cairo Station	Marks a significant phase for Egyptian cinematic realism.
Ezz El-Dine Zulficar	The River of Love	Marks a significant phase for Egyptian cinematic romance.
Atef El-Tayeb	The Bus Driver	Often mentioned to highlight the start of the New Realist movement.
Hassan El Imam	Watch Out for ZouZou	Marks the highest ever grossing film in history.
Jehane Noujaim	The Square	First film to be nominated for an Academy Award.

Iraq

History of the industry

Iraq has a long history of cinema since their independence in 1921. In the course of 82 years, from 1921 to 2003, 100 films have been produced and released in Iraq.
The first theater in Iraq opened its doors before 1920.
Post-independence period, more cinemas began to appear. A milestone was achieved in 1957 when 137 cinemas were established with a total capacity of 70,000 seats. After 1940, studios slowly began to appear in Iraq where Iraqi-made films would be produced.
One of the first studios in Iraq was opened in 1946 by the wealthy Sawda'i family in Baghdad. Studio Baghdad relied on specialists from Europe and Egypt to function. Its first movie, 'Aliya wa 'Isam, was recorded by the French director André Shatan, and released in 1948. In 1951, the Sawda'i family moved to Israel. For the next three years, various Iraqi's from abroad took over control until it was sold to Iraqi's who lived abroad in 1954. The studio still made movies for the next 12 years, until it was sold to the Coca-Cola Company in 1966, who wanted to turn the land and buildings into a new factory.
The government of Iraq established a department of cinema in 1959, which only produced a couple documentaries and two films per year.
During the reign of Saddam Hussein from 1979 to 2003, the cinema industry in Iraq was mainly filled with pro-Baathist propaganda. But this was the era where Iraqi cinema became significant and well-known in the Arab world.
Until 1991, Iraq was home to 275 cinemas across the nation, even though during the era of Saddam Hussein many theaters were slowly closed down. When the First Gulf War began, film-making equipment and celluloids were banned from entering the country because of an international embargo put on Iraq.

Post-invasion of Iraq

In 2003, film production in Iraq halted because of the U.S. invasion. In the same year, the National Film Archives in Iraq was bombed by the U.S. army and almost all of its celluloid collection was wiped away. Following from this, the Iraqi Independent Film Centre became active, which was formally established in 2009 by founder Mohammed Al-Daradji. It was the first Iraqi organization of its kind where cultural preservation of the movie industry was its objective.
In 2014, the Al-Nahj festival was founded, a film festival which was focused on short films and documentaries.
In 2017, the first Iraqi-made film was released after 27 years in Baghdad. The Journey is a psychological thriller film directed by Mohammed Al-Daradji with Zahraa Ghandour in the leading role.