1994, Tunisia), and Palestinian Elia Suleiman,
whose film Divine Intervention won the Grand
Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002.
Although Arab cinema, as elsewhere, is pre-
dominantly secular in outlook, Islamic subjects
and themes often do occur in dramas and films
on historical topics. Dramatic films usually affirm
social virtues such as marital fidelity, respect for
the Family, charity, making an honest living, and
defending the weak, while they also condemn
immorality and criminal behavior. They include
scenes of people at prayer, reciting the qUran,
visiting mosqUes or shrines, and celebrating reli-
gious holidays. Moreover, a number of films
have addressed hot-button socioreligious issues
such as polygamy and divorce, criticizing aspects
of Islamic family law as practiced in countries
such as Egypt. Since the 1990s, Islamic radical-
ism has been critically examined in films such as
Nader Galal’s The Terrorist (Egypt, 1994) and Atef
Hetata’s Closed Doors (Egypt, 1999). Historical
films have dealt with topics such as the crUsades
(Youssef Chahine’s Al-Nasir Salah al-Din, 1963)
and the lives of famous Muslims, such as rabia al-
adaWiyya (Egypt, 1955) and ibn rUshd (Youssef
Chahine’s Destiny, Egypt, 1997).
IrANIAN CINEMA
The advent of cinema in Iran can be traced to the
beginning of the 20th century with the inaugura-
tion of the first movie house in 1907. It was in
the 1930s that cinema became a more serious
enterprise with the establishment of the first
film studio and the release of movies such as The
Brother’s Revenge, Abi and Rabi, and the Lor Girl.
During this time, cinema aimed at entertaining
city dwellers and concerned itself with topics
such as the migration of villagers into the city and
the transformation of traditional ethics into bour-
geois values. For instance, Rapacious, released in
1934, was about a peasant who left his wife for
a city woman. This decade witnessed the first
Persian-language sound newsreel with Prime Min-
ister Muhammad Ali Furughi (1887–1942) and
mUs taFa kamal atatUrk (1881–1938). Another
significant production in the 1930s was an adapta-
tion from Ferdawsi’s national epic the Shahnamah,
“The Book of the Kings,” which has traditionally
fostered national pride among Iranians. It is safe
to say that the birth of Iranian cinema is insepara-
ble from the advent of modernity and its cultural
manifestations in Iranian society.
In the next decades, Iranian cinema devel-
oped into a primarily commercial industry with
a limited “art film” cinema that operated in its
shadows. A favorite theme for this commercial
cinema was Iranian patriarchal attitudes toward
life, tradition, and gender. This was expressed in
the genre film jaheli, a genre that was initiated by
Ismail Kushan. In these films, the character of the
working class or petit bourgeoisie was explored
and celebrated. The male protagonist provided a
caricature of the medieval practice of chivalry, in
which honor was based on the chastity of a man’s
female relatives (sister, daughter, female cousins,
etc). This theme dominated Iranian cinema of the
1960s. Another important theme at this time was
the relationship between Iranians and Westerners.
Ibram in Paris (1964) highlighted the difference
between Iranians and Europeans.
The intellectual response to this commercial
cinema is not limited to the production of art films.
In 1971, Masoud Kimiai (b. 1941) undertook the
production of Dash Akul, based on a modern clas-
sic short story with the same title by the acclaimed
Iranian prose writer Sadiq Hidayat. The story is a
psychological evaluation of the themes of chivalry,
which are also expressed in the film’s more commer-
cial counterparts. In the 1960s, other art filmmakers
such as Furugh Farrukhzad (1935–67) and Dary-
ush Mehrjui (b. 1937), inspired by international
cinema, made great contributions in their docu-
mentaries and surrealistic films. These filmmakers,
along with others, developed the New Iranian Cin-
ema as an alternative to commercial cinema.
With the establishment of the Islamic Republic
of Iran in 1979 and its puritanical attitudes toward
the arts, the prospects for Iranian cinema seemedK (^146) cinema