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About Us

The Middle East Film Caucus represents academics, independent scholars, film makers, graduate students, and other film and media professionals who study film and media from the Middle East, including its diasporas and other historical and intellectual border crossings. 

Mission

Though this region has had a historically consistent and evolved film culture, much of its cinema is relatively under-represented outside the region, or largely limited to select screenings in major urban centers or international film festivals. The primary mission of the SCMS Middle East caucus is to devote a dedicated intellectual forum to study the cinemas of these countries and languages, its diverse concerns, its varied aesthetic approaches, its auteurs, its commercial and evolving trends, the concerns of its diasporas and connections within the region and to the wider world. 

As a minority caucus, the Middle East caucus also recognizes the need to provide intellectual support to those individuals in the US and elsewhere who engage in Middle East film and media studies. To this end, the Middle East film caucus organizes and sponsors panels, papers and workshops at SCMS conferences that focus on issues pertaining to the production, distribution, viewing, scholarship, and the writing and teaching of Middle Eastern cinemas. The caucus also recognizes the need to support established and emerging filmmakers pertinent to the region and to that end solicits, selects and sponsors film screenings at SCMS conferences.