The Book: A Pioneering Study in English on a Groundbreaking Body of Work
Published in 2021 by Edinburgh University Press,ReFocus: The Films of Jocelyne Saab: Films, Artworks and Cultural Events for the Arab World is the first English-language book entirely devoted to the Franco-Lebanese filmmaker. It is part of the prestigious "ReFocus: The International Directors Series," which offers in-depth studies of major filmmakers from around the world.
Edited byMathilde Rouxel, PhD from Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, archivist of Jocelyne Saab and head of the restoration of her films, andStefanie Van de Peer, lecturer and researcher at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh and a recognized specialist in Arab and African cinema, the volume brings together seventeen contributions from international scholars. It thus testifies to the transnational interest that Saab's work generates today.
A Multidisciplinary Approach for a Polymorphic Body of Work
Jocelyne Saab (1948-2019) was much more than a filmmaker: she was a journalist, visual artist, exhibition curator, and festival organizer. To account for this diversity, the book is structured into four thematic parts, preceded by an introduction that offers a synthesis of her life and work, adapting Mathilde Rouxel's earlier monograph.
The first part,"Fifty Years of Creation in the Turmoil of Arab History," explores Saab's beginnings, her relationship to the Lebanese Civil War, her photographic works, and her unfinished projects. Olivier Hadouchi's interview with the filmmaker reveals her desire to "give voice to those who have none" and to bring people together beyond their political and religious differences. A chapter by Joan Grandjean shows how Saab, in her contemporary art works such asStrange Games and Bridges (2007), uses architecture and narratives to confer temporality to her creations.
The second part,"Film as a Weapon against War and Oblivion," examines Saab's relationship to memory and the archive. Ghada Sayegh describes her as a "cine-archivist," haunted by the disappearance of what she films. Mark R. Westmoreland analyzes the filmIl était une fois Beyrouth (1994) as a form of cinematic archaeology. A chapter by Némésis Srour is devoted to the CRIFFL (Cultural Resistance International Film Festival of Lebanon), a festival that Saab created to bring together Asian and Arab cinemas.
The third part,"Liberating the People, Freeing the Body," addresses feminist themes, emancipation, and liberation. Stefanie Van de Peer analyzes Saab's early documentaries on guerrillas and borders. Margaret McVeigh studies the development of the screenplay forDunia (2005), while Maram Soboh explores the philosophy of dance in four of her fictions. A chapter by Corinne Fortier examinesGender Café andOne Dollar a Day through the lens of exile and gender.
The fourth part,"Advocating Poetry," focuses on the poetic dimension of her cinema. Marie Chebli analyzesUne vie suspendue as a cinematic fall, and Gregory Buchakjian confronts Saab's representations of Beirut with his own practice as an urban photographer.
The volume closes with anexhaustive catalog of Jocelyne Saab's entire artistic production, established by Mathilde Rouxel, which attests to the breadth and richness of her activity.
A Body of Work at the Crossroads of Geographies, Disciplines, and Memories
What runs through all the contributions is the figure of an artist whose gaze is resolutely non-Western. Although she lived a large part of her life in France, Saab always positioned herself on the side of emancipatory struggles in the Arab world. She firmly opposed the confusion between criticism of Israel and antisemitism, which she considered "a European hatred."
The book also shows how Saab constantly sought tocelebrate life against everything that mutilates and imprisons human beings. Her cinema, as Claire Launchbury notes in her review inStudies in World Cinema, "never ceases to affirm and celebrate life against everything that mutilates, imprisons, and prevents women and men from flourishing."
Critical Reception
The book has been praised by critics. Filmmaker and researcherViola Shafik calls it "a tantalizing compilation of a great variety of well-informed, original authors and perspectives which aptly mirrors the multi-faceted and challenging oeuvre of the Lebanese artist-filmmaker Jocelyne Saab and her truly global and internationalist stature."
Claire Launchbury, inStudies in World Cinema, notes that "this impressive collection is of interest beyond film studies; it engages poetry, photography, urban studies, Asian studies, and is itself a beautiful tribute to Saab's life and work."
List of Contributors
- Samirah Alkassim
- Gregory Buchakjian
- Marie Chebli
- Corinne Fortier
- Joan Grandjean
- Olivier Hadouchi
- Yomota Inuhiko
- Margaret McVeigh
- Léa Polverini
- Ghada Sayegh
- Maram Soboh
- Némésis Srour
- Giovanni Vimercati
- Mark R. Westmoreland
Reviews and Press Articles
- Claire Launchbury – Review published inStudies in World Cinema (2022, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 242-244). The author highlights the importance of this work as the first study in English on Saab, the diversity of contributors, and the replication of the filmmaker's internationalist and emancipatory ideology in the book's structure.
🔗 https://referenceworks.brill.com/downloadpdf/view/journals/swc/1/2/article-p242_009.pdf - Viola Shafik – Endorsement on the cover of the book, praising the diversity of perspectives and the relevance of the approach.