Dr Stefanie Van de Peer
Research Assistant
Research profile
My research focuses on women's filmmaking in the Middle East and North Africa. Looking at the pioneers of women's filmmaking in the region, I am especially interested in the hybrid genre of docu-fiction and its exploration of the relationships between filmmaker, subject and spectator. More recently, I have looked at the animated documentary representing the unrepresentable. I continue to research and write on women's films and film-related events in the Middle East, looking at issues of censorship and the change of political influence on cinema.I was a Research Fellow at the Five Colleges Women's Studies Research Centre in Massachusetts, where I continued working on women in cinema. I have written about festivals, women and film in Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Syria and Lebanon. I also directed Africa in Motion Film Festival until 2011, have collaborated with the Middle East Film Festival in Edinburgh, REEL Festival in Damascus and Beirut, and with the Boston Palestine Film Festival.
See also the PURE research profile.
Selected publications
Edited Volume
Bisschoff, L. and Van de Peer, S. (eds.) Art and Trauma in Africa: Representations of Reconciliation in Music, Visual Art, Literature and Film. London: I.B. Tauris, forthcoming 2013. 317pp.
Book Chapters
‘Selma Baccar's Fatma 75 and Assia Djebar's La Nouba', in: Murphy, D. and Bisschoff, L. (eds.) Africa's Lost Classics. New Histories of African Cinema. Oxford: Legenda, forthcoming 2013.
‘Closed Windows Onto Morocco's Past: Leila Kilani's Our Forbidden Places', in: Bisschoff, L. and Van de Peer, S. (eds.) Art and Trauma in Africa: Representations of Reconciliation in Music, Visual Art, Literature and Film. London: I.B. Tauris, forthcoming 2013. (231‐250)
‘The Labyrinth of Halfaouine: Storytelling and the 1001 Nights', in: Khatib, L. (ed.) Storytelling in World Cinema. Colombia University Press, May 2012. (61-71).
Articles in Journals
‘Young Transnational Cinema in the Maghreb', in Journal of African Cinemas, special issue on 40 Years of Women Filmmaking in Francophone Africa: 1972-2012, (Intellect), December 2012.
‘Reem Ali's Zabad (2008): Cinematic Dissidence in Syria', in: Anastasia Valassopoulos (ed.) Journal for Cultural Research (Taylor & Francis, Issue 16, No. 2&3), March 2012. (p.297-317).
‘The Physicalities of African Documentaries: The Case of Ateyyat El Abnoudy from Egypt', in Critical Interventions, (Aachron Editions USA, No. 8), Spring 2012. (p.135-154).
‘An Interview with the Doyenne of Tunisian Cinema: Selma Baccar', in Journal of North African Studies, (Routledge, Vol. 16, No. 3), July 2011. (p.471-483).
‘Permissible Documentaries: Representation in Ateyyat El Abnoudy's documentaries', in Journal of African Cinemas, (Intellect, Vol. 3, No. 1), May 2011. (p.109‐124).
‘Selma Baccar's Fatma 75: At the Crossroads between Third Cinema and New Arab Cinema', in: Francophone Documentary, a special edition of the journal French Forum, (University of Nebraska Press, Vol. 35, Nos. 2-3), March 2011. (p.17-37).
Articles in non-academic Magazines and Newspapers
‘The Film festival in Exile: DoxBox Global Day celebrates Omar Amiralay', Guardian Film, 14 March 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2012/mar/14/dox-box-global-day-omar-amiralay
Review of Pegasus by Mohamed Mouftakir, winner of FESPACO 2011. In African Screens, online magazine. May 2011.
‘Cinema of the Maghreb', in: Film & Festivals Issue 19, Available online: www.filmandfestivals.com, January 2010 (20-23)
Recent Conference Papers
‘Programming constraints for small festivals in Scotland', 10-11 September 2012: Universita Ca' Foscari, Venice. Workshop: Programming Film Festivals, from Europe to Asia.
‘ Trauma and Reconciliation in Morocco: Leila Kilani's Our Forbidden Places', 20‐23 August 2012: Lincoln, University of Lincoln, Brayford Campus. Interrogating Trauma in the Humanities Conference.
‘Women and War in Algerian Cinema: Rachida and If Fog Had Roots', 22‐24 June 2012: London, University of London Institute of Education. The Second Annual London Film and Media Conference.
‘Tunisian Women Before and After the Jasmine Revolution: a cross-media exploration of representation', plenary paper, 26 May 2012: York, University of York. The Arab Women, Media and Sexuality Conference. Centre for Women's Studies.