Togo Mizrahi and the Making of Egyptian Cinema

Starr, Deborah A.

Togo Mizrahi and the Making of Egyptian Cinema

Abstract

In this book, Deborah A. Starr recuperates the work of Togo Mizrahi, a pioneer of Egyptian cinema. Mizrahi, an Egyptian Jew with Italian nationality, established himself as a prolific director of popular comedies and musicals in the 1930s and 1940s. As a studio owner and producer, Mizrahi promoted the idea that developing a local cinema industry was a project of national importance. Togo Mizrahi and the Making of Egyptian Cinema integrates film analysis with film history to tease out the cultural and political implications of Mizrahi's work. His movies, Starr argues, subvert dominant notions of race, gender, and nationality through their playful- and queer-use of masquerade and mistaken identity. Taken together, Mizrahi's films offer a hopeful vision of a pluralist Egypt. By reevaluating Mizrahi's contributions to Egyptian culture, Starr challenges readers to reconsider the debates over who is Egyptian and what constitutes national cinema.

Sponsorship

Publication of this open monograph was the result of Cornell University’s participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries. TOME aims to expand the reach of long-form humanities and social science scholarship including digital scholarship. Additionally, the program looks to ensure the sustainability of university press monograph publishing by supporting the highest quality scholarship and promoting a new ecology of scholarly publishing in which authors’ institutions bear the publication costs. Funding from Cornell University made it possible to open this publication to the world. www.openmonographs.org. Publication was also supported by the Hull Memorial Publication Fund of Cornell University and by the Jewish Studies Program at Cornell University.

Date Issued

2020

Publisher

University of California Press

Keywords

Mizrāh.ī, Tūjū, 1905–1986—Criticism and interpretation; Motion picture producers and directors—Egypt; Motion pictures—Egypt—20th century

Related DOI

https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.91

Previously Published As

Starr, D. A. Togo Mizrahi and the Making of Egyptian Cinema. 2020. University of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.91

ISBN

9780520976122

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Rights URI

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Types

book

Accessibility Hazard

none

Accessibility Summary

Accessible EPUB