Queer Lebanese Cinema: Towards New Political Imaginaries

Announced by the University of Pittsburgh

Raed (El) Rafei is a scholar, filmmaker and multimedia journalist. He is Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies in the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh. His research focuses on queer cinema in the Arab region and its diasporas. As a journalist, he has worked for international publications like The Los Angeles Times and news outlets like CNN and Al-Jazeera Documentary Channel. Rafei directed award-winning documentaries and experimental films. His films 74 (The Reconstitution of a Struggle), Here I am ... Here you are, and Al-Atlal (The Ruins) have screened at international film festivals and venues like the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Doc Lisboa, Visions du Réel, and the Pacific Film Archives in Berkeley. His essays have been published in The Common, Mizna, Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, The Progressive and e-flux journal. His essay “On the Natural, the Obscure and Anal Tests,” was published by Sternberg Press as a chapter in an edited volume in 2015 titled, Pink Labor on Golden Streets: Queer Art Practices. His peer-reviewed book chapter “Queer Revolution and the Reawakening of the Belly Dancer” is scheduled to appear in October 2024 in Gender, Sexuality, and Queerness in Contemporary Art from Southwest Asia and North Africa: Beyond Borders and Binaries, Intellect Books, UK.