Screens and Veils: Maghrebi Women's Cinema - Paperback

by Florence Martin (Author)

Examined within their economic, cultural, and political context, the work of women Maghrebi filmmakers forms a cohesive body of work. Florence Martin examines the intersections of nation and gender in seven films, showing how directors turn around the politics of the gaze as they play with the various meanings of the Arabic term hijab (veil, curtain, screen). Martin analyzes these films on their own theoretical terms, developing the notion of "transvergence" to examine how Maghrebi women's cinema is flexible, playful, and transgressive in its themes, aesthetics, narratives, and modes of address. These are distinctive films that traverse multiple cultures, both borrowing from and resisting the discourses these cultures propose.

Author Biography

Florence Martin is Professor of French and Francophone Literature and Cinema at Goucher College and Associate Editor of Studies in French Cinema. She is author of Bessie Smith, of De la Guyane à la diaspora africaine (with Isabelle Favre), and of A vous de voir! (with Maryse Fauvel and Stéphanie Martin).