The film of the Muslim world is so diverse, professor Mera Moore says, that it is tough to talk inclusively about "Muslim cinema."
Nevertheless, that was the topic of this year's Cine Cafe, held Monday at the Rotunda. Moore, a director and screenwriter specializing in American immigrants, spoke before an audience of about a dozen students and professors for the event.
She said that referring to all movies produced in the Muslim world, regardless of national origin, as 'Muslim Cinema' doesn't reflect the diversity of Muslim cultures.
"It is imperative that people define terms properly, with national titles instead of simply Muslim Cinema," Moore said.
The audience and speaker engaged in a lively discussion as to what actually makes a Muslim film a Muslim film.
Penn professor Pardis Minuchehr, who led the discussion, agreed that Muslim film varies widely from country to country.
"I'm from Iran, and I've taught in Turkey," said Minuchehr. "And I actually found the Turkish [people] more observant than the Iranians."
Moore began her address with a brief examination of several female Muslim documentarians and their works.
She spoke of award-winning producer Fatimah Tobing Rony, who emigrated to the U.S. from Indonesia as a small child and created a short film, "On Cannibalism," describing how the 1933 movie King Kong depicts her mother's Nias people as "barbaric savages."
"She was watching the film one day," Moore said. "And she realized that she could understand the dialect the villagers were using. ... It was her mother's."
Moore concluded by saying that Muslim cinema, and in particular female documentarians, are important because they provide a variety of perspectives.
"They offer an alternative viewpoint from movie after movie of stereotypical viewpoints," she said. "They give a diversity of opinion.
At the end of the discussion, the response was positive.
"Before this, I had no idea what Muslim cinema was," said College freshman Fahd Mukhtar. "It was a good discussion."
The event was hosted by Penn Cinema Studies in collaboration with the Philadelphia Film Festival.
