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| Haifaa Al-Mansour Frank Perry/afp/getty images |
In the Middle East, women directors unspool social commentary
The Monitor talks to three female filmmakers about the trials and triumphs of moviemaking in conservative societies.
from the February 15, 2008 edition
Page 3 of 3
Buthina Canaan Khoury
Buthina Canaan Khoury, a Christian Palestinian filmmaker from the West Bank town of Taybeh, is used to pioneering unchartered territory. She was the first Palestinian camera woman and producer for the European Broadcasting Union inside the Palestinian Territories. Now the head of her own Majd Production Company, she has nothing less than a filmmaking agenda: to highlight key Palestinian issues.
Her latest film, "Maria's Grotto," which opened November in Ramallah, takes on the often taboo subject of honor killings. In it, Khoury looks at the aftermath of two honor killings and interviews two other women who survived brutal stabbings. "This movie is not meant to give a bad image to Palestinians," she stresses. "On the contrary, we criticize ourselves because we love our society and want to help it improve."
Khoury got her start in Boston by getting an MBA in photography and filmmaking. Her first splash as a filmmaker was 2004's "Women in Struggle," an account of four women who had spent years in Israeli jails.
The filmmaker is thrilled that more women are getting behind the camera.
"It's a domino effect, in which seeing one Arab woman making a film soon inspires and encourages others to follow suit," she says. "And the more we produce, the greater the interest – before we were seen as exotic, one-off phenomenons, but now we have a diversity of voices and we are being taken more seriously."
She wouldn't mind a turn at lighter fare, though. Khoury's next film will relay the story of her own family, which moved from Boston back home to Taybeh, in the West Bank, in 1994 after the Oslo Accords – in order to fulfill their father's dream of opening the first microbrewery in the Middle East. (Not easy in a region full of "dry" spots.)
"It's challenging to do women's issues all the time," concludes Khoury. "I would like to have a little fun."
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