ReFocus: The Films of Annemarie Jacir

by Iqra Shagufta Cheema, Stefanie Van de Peer

Overview

This book offers a transnational, internationalist—feminist approach to the oeuvre of award—winning director, writer, and curator, Annemarie Jacir.
Palestinian film culture is unique due to its geopolitical circumstances, including continued colonialism and occupation, and the refugeeship of its citizens. The scholarship on the politics of film and its role in the Israeli—Palestinian conflict – including activist work, international solidarity films, and work on Palestinian documentaries – is usually defined by historical overviews of geopolitical events and developments. In contrast, this book offers an auteur—focused study of a global artist influenced by but not limited to the political discourse surrounding the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Jacir is a Palestinian woman whose work is recognised globally as innovative, politically challenging, and genre—crossing. The book offers an in—depth study of her films and other works by locating it in a geospatial, sociocultural, and critical theoretical framework. It critically analyses Annemarie Jacir’s development as an artist, filmmaker, and curator of film.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474480925
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	08/29/2025
Series:	ReFocus: The International Directors Series
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Iqra Shagufta Cheema is an Assistant Professor in Humanities at Graceland University, Iowa.

Stefanie Van de Peer is Reader in Film & Media at Queen Margaret University. She has published Negotiating Dissidence (EUP 2017), Women in African Cinema (Routledge 2020) and ReFocus: The Films of Annemarie Jacir (EUP 2023). She has also edited several edited collections on diverse topics including Jocelyne Saab’s work, Arab Stardom and Global Feminist Film Archives. She sits on the Executive Committee of the British Association of Film, TV and Screen Studies, is series editor for EUP’s ReFocus: The International Directors series, and is associate editor for the journal Studies in World Cinema.

Table of Contents

Preface: Annemarie Jacir’s Transnational Oeuvre — Iqra Shagufta Cheema

1. Experimenting with Realities in Jacir’s Short Films — Stefanie Van de Peer

2. Heterotopias and Thirdspaces: Construction of Space in Jacir’s Films — Iqra Shagufta Cheema

3. Locations of Memory: Home and Homeland — Iqra Shagufta Cheema

4. Transvergent Transnationalism: Borders, Homes, and Humans — Iqra Shagufta Cheema

5. Characters at the Margins or Minor Characters — Iqra Shagufta Cheema

6. Curatorial Politics and Practices — Stefanie Van de Peer

7. An Interview with Annemarie Jacir

Index

Editorial Reviews

This is a well—documented study which offers an intimate vision of the evolution of Jacir’s film oeuvre, and how Palestinian cinema and audio—visual practices can become acts of resistance exposing the incongruous cultural memories of diverse Palestinian generations and their struggles for the homeland, freedom, and transnational identity in exile.

Ihab Saloul

Cheema and Van de Peer expertly illuminate Annemarie Jacir’s engagement with the complexity of the Palestinian experience as it traverses questions of memory, space and the transnational. The book pays homage to Jacir’s cinematic contribution as film editor, writer, producer and facilitator and perceptively traces the struggles and pleasures involved in the creation of a committed and aesthetically ambitious Palestinian cinema.

Anastasia Valassopoulos