An Arab Woman’s Place is in the Struggle Curated by Giovanni Vimercati

Paraphrasing Assata Shakur’s dictum “a woman’s place is in the struggle,” this programme of films by and about women in the Middle East is meant to foreground their place on the frontlines of political struggles, past and present. Often faced with a dual form of oppression, within and without their societies, women in the Middle East have had to confront the orientalist paternalism that frames them as helpless victims to be rescued. The films in this programme are an antidote to this enduring stereotype, showcasing the many ways in which struggles have been articulated by Arab women against colonial occupation, patriarchal and economic exploitation. Unimpressed by the publicized promises of The West and its brand of duplicitous “freedom,” the emancipatory projects and urges these films document and stage are not meant to legitimize one system over another, but to undermine the very structure of oppression altogether. Though concerned with specific forms of coercion, historically and geographically situated, these films evoke a will do generalized liberation that ultimately transcend their contingencies.

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Giovanni Vimercati is a film critic and scholar.

• An Explanation: And Then Burn the Ashes by Annemarie Jacir (2006, 70min)

• Tell Your Tale, Little Bird by Arab Loutfi (2007, 90 min)

• Palestinian Women by Jocelyne Saab (1974, 10 min)

• Nation Estate by Larissa Sansour  (2012, 10 min)

• FATMA 75 by Selma Baccar ( 1975, 60 min)

• A Labor Theory of Artistic Value by Mary Jirmanus Saba (2024, 20 min)

• So Much I Want to Say by Mona Hatoum (1983, 8 min)

• Going for a Ride by Nahed Awwad (2003, 15 min)

• The Great Sadness of Zohara by Nina Menkes (1983, 40 min)