Research Guides: Middle East Studies: Middle Eastern Film

Middle Eastern Films

The library offers a growing number of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish language films, from the classic era of Egyptian cinema to recent award winning films. The films are located on the first floor of the Thompson library. Most are in the non-English language DVD section, but documentaries may be located in the English DVD section.

OSU's secured media library allows students and professors to stream films both inside and outside the classroom. Please contact Middle East Studies in the library if you have any questions about using films in your research and teaching or if you would like to suggest a purchase.

Check out our Current Events - Film Series page to see a listing of our upcoming Middle East Film Series showings, free and open to the public.

Viewing Middle Eastern Films

Aflam - YouTube
Aflam is a YouTube channel featuring classic Egyptian films.

Ethnographic Video Online This link opens in a new window
Ethnographic Video Online: is a comprehensive online resource for the study of human culture and behavior. The collection is made up of hundreds of hours of classic and contemporary documentaries previously unpublished footage from working anthropologists and ethnographers in the field and select feature films. Wherever possible, videos include accompanying field notes, liner notes, filmmaker biographies, related articles, study guides, and other context-enhancing, full-text materials.
Criterion Collection This link opens in a new window
The Criterion Collection is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing important classic and contemporary films. Criterion has helped to standardize certain aspects of home-video releases such as film restoration, the letterboxing format for widescreen films and the inclusion of bonus features such as scholarly essays and commentary tracks. This record links to the Criterion films available via Ohio State University's Kanopy subscription.

Reference

Companion encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North African film / edited by Oliver Leaman by Oliver Leaman
Call Number: PN1993.5.A65 C66 2001 c.2
ISBN: 0415187036
Publication Date: 2001
Encyclopedia of Arab women filmmakers / Rebecca Hillauer ; translated by Allison Brown, Deborah Cohen, and Nancy Joyce by Encyclopedia of Arab women filmmakers / Rebecca Hillauer ; translated by Allison Brown, Deborah Cohen, and Nancy Joyce
Call Number: PN1998.2 .H4513 2005
ISBN: 9774249437
Publication Date: 2005
Historical dictionary of Middle Eastern cinema [electronic resource] / Terri Ginsberg, Chris Lippard ; with contributions by Farshad Aminian ... [et al.] by Ginsberg, Terri
Call Number: PN1993.5.M53 G56 2010eb
ISBN: 9780810873643 (ebook)
Publication Date: 2010

Indexes and Bibliographies

Film Literature Index Online
The Film Literature Index (FLI) annually indexes 150 film and television periodicals from 30 countries cover-to-cover and 200 other periodicals selectively for articles on film and television. The periodicals range from the scholarly to the popular. More than 2,000 subject headings provide detailed analysis of the articles.

MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Index to journals, books, dictionaries, dissertations, and conference papers on literature, languages, folklore and linguistics. Includes critical writings on literature and human languages, including both naturallanguages and invented languages, e.g., Esperanto. Citations in a non-Roman alphabet are translated into the Roman alphabet.

A Chronology of Palestinian Cinema
The website for El Centro de Documentación sobre Cine in collaboration with the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University contains a chronology of Palestinian film and several bibliographies for further reading.

Middle East Studies Search Tips

When searching for materials in Middle Eastern languages, you can either search using vernacular (Persian, Arabic, Turkish, etc.) or by using romanized characters. Keep in mind that you may not get all possible results by using vernacular and that you must use the Library of Congress transliteration system:

ALA-LA Romanization Tables

This is the system used in US and UK Libraries.

IJMES Translation and Transliteration Guide

IJMES is the most commonly used transliteration system for academic books and articles in English. Please note that it is not identical to the Library of Congress''s transliteration style.

Encyclopedia of Islam/Brill Transliteration Guide

Since the Encyclopedia of islam was designed as an Anglo-French Project, its transliteration was designed to serve both languages and has retained many unique features

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