Jocelyne Saab: Inventory 1973–1983

Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab is known for the politically committed films she made during a career spanning from 1970 until her death in 2019. With more than 40 titles in her filmography, Saab documented the unspoken narratives in the Arab world, highlighting and bringing voice to marginalised and oppressed communities. She filmed major political events in Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Western Sahara and Iran while also producing and directing reportages, documentaries, and short and long fictions films.

Jocelyne Saab: Inventory 1973–1983 underscores and archives the rise of the political left movements, armed revolutions and public struggles in the Arab world during the 1970s and 1980s. The book reflects on the emergence of political and militant film production and indexes technical information, crew names, dialogue transcriptions and elaborate image selections. 

Including texts by Mohanad Yaqubi, the lead researcher and co-editor of the book (with Elettra Bisogno), the book features contributions from Mathilde Rouxel, Etel Adnan and Roger Assaf as well as excerpted texts by Saab herself. The book explores the methodology behind producing filmic collections and the Arab cinematic archive, making it an accessible source for researchers and filmmakers interested in film production in the Arab world during the 1970s.