Censorship as enabling: importing, distributing, and translating foreign films in the Arab Middle East

Abstract

Control over film exhibition in commercial film theatres globally has been perceived as a practice that an exclusive authority has enforced for so long. This study which casts light on the control enforced on foreign film exhibition in commercial cinemas in the Arab Middle East (AME), uncovers a system of foreign film exhibition in the AME that has been ever obscure to the public audience, readership, and researchers in fields like film studies and the broadcast of audiovisual content. The analysis of this system is based upon interviews with key agents involved in decision making regarding the foreign films selected for exhibition and the censorial practices implemented to make these selected films culturally suitable for commercial cinemas in the AME. These interviewees include an exhibitor in a regional film import and distribution company, film classifiers, and film translators. Their input helps to analyse the processes of foreign film selection, scene filtering, distribution, and classification that are all incorporated in the system of foreign film exhibition. Furthermore, this analysis helps to uncover an obscure system of exhibition and identify the policymaking process and the policymakers involved in this context. Thus, while this study argues that this system enables film exhibition, it challenges the prevailing perception that control over foreign film exhibition in the AME is exclusively enforced by an authority generally known as the board of censors.