Cinema of the Middle East

Middle Eastern cinema collectively refers to the film industries of West Asia and part of North Africa. By definition, it encompasses the film industries of Egypt, Iran, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. As such, the film industries of these countries are also part of the cinema of Asia, or in the case of Egypt, Africa.

Since the inception of cinema in Europe and the United States, many people assumed that cinema in the Middle East arrived much later than Western Cinema. However, it was found that cinema was brought into most of the Arab countries by the beginning of the 20th century, particularly in Egypt in 1896, by Pathé Frères or the Lumière Brothers. Eventually since the 1950s Egyptian cinema was and still is the main dominating Arab and Middle Eastern film industry and this led to many other Middle Eastern countries incorporating Egyptian conventions into their own films.^[1]

Each Middle Eastern country has a different and distinctive culture of cinema which differs in both history and infrastructure. The historical component includes key events and trigger points which led to the inception or emergence of cinema in the Middle East. The infrastructural component defines the current institution and/or systems in place which facilitate the financing/development/exhibition of cinema, locally or internationally.