Documenting Syria

Josepha Ivanka (Joshka) Wessels is Senior Lecturer in Communication for Development with the School of Arts and Communication (K3) at Malmö University in Sweden and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Syrian Studies at the University of St Andrews. She has a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Amsterdam and has carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Copenhagen and Lund University. Until 2012 she was a documentary filmmaker and consultant on the MENA region, with her work being broadcast on the BBC and Al Jazeera English.

• AcknowledgementsPrefaceIntroductionDissident Art and Arab CinemaPART I: Documentary Filmmaking in Syria1. Masters of Syrian Documentary2. Inspired by the masters, a new generation.3. Documentaries for social change, the case of Bassel ShehadehPART II: Eyewitnesses of a Revolution4. Syrian Emergency Cinema and YouTube5. The view from below, video activism from the North6. Politics of the image; relations with international media.7. To tell the world! Evidencing warcrimes and VR.EpilogueFilmographiesA Call from Syrian FilmmakersNotes and ReferencesBibliography

Wessels brings a filmmaker’s eye and an anthropologist’s sensibility to this landmark examination of Syrian documentaries and their creators. Documenting Syria recognizes Syrians as central figures in contemporary Arab media production. Its unflinchingly-reflective narrative draws a line that stretches from eminent professional filmmakers of the late 20th century, to new- generation documentarians of the 2000s, through to the grass-roots social media activists whose work forms a potential forensic archive. Writing from decades of deep engagement, Wessels shatters the myth that the Syrian uprising’s explosion of dissident culture emerged from a creative void.