In the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, the Iraqi Jewish Sawda’i family pioneered the construction of cinemas, import of films, and established Iraq’s first film studio, Studio Baghdad. Examining the history of Iraqi cinema and film production and distribution through the Sawda’i family brings into focus many of the elements that characterized the mediums early history in Iraq, including the importance of family businesses, minority networks, the dominance of Hollywood, and the many transnational networks and affiliations that tied Iraq to Europe, the US, India, and the rest of the Middle East. Finally, it is also an opportunity to complicate the way in which national narratives of Iraqi and Middle Eastern cinema have obscured the role of those with hybrid identities, including the Sawda’i family.
Bio
Pelle Valentin Olsen is a cultural and social historian of the modern Middle East. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2020. His research examines the history of leisure, cultural production, education, gender, and sexuality in twentieth-century Iraq. On the basis of his dissertation, Pelle is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Idle Days and Nights: Leisure, Time, and Modernity in Iraq. In 2020–2, he was a postdoctoral fellow in Global Studies at Roskilde University, Denmark. Currently, he is a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oslo and Associate Professor of History at the University of Bergen. His work has appeared in edited volumes as well as in Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Arab Studies Journal, Journal of Palestine Studies, Middle East Critique, Regards, Journal of Arabic Literature, Journal of Social History and elsewhere.