Storytelling in World Cinemas: Forms

Storytelling in World Cinemas, Vol. 1: Forms is an innovative collection of essays that discuss how different cinemas of the world tell stories. The book locates European, Asian, African, and Latin American films within their wider cultural and artistic frameworsk, showing how storytelling forms in cinema are infused with influences from other artistic, literary, and oral traditions. This volume also reconsiders cinematic storytelling in general, highlighting the hybridity of 'national' forms of storytelling, calling for a rethinking of African cinematic storytelling that goes beyond oral traditions, and addressing films characterised by 'non-narration'. This study is the first in a two-volume project, with the second focusing on the contexts of cinematic storytelling.

Lina Khatib leads the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. She is the author of Filming the Modern Middle East: Politics in the Cinemas of Hollywood and the Arab World (2006) and Lebanese Cinema: Imagining the Civil War and Beyond (2008).