From its early focus on documentary film and nation building to its more recent spotlight on contemporary culture and feature filmmaking, Moroccan cinema has undergone tremendous change since the country's independence in 1956. In What Moroccan Cinema? A Historical and Critical Study, 1956-2006, Sandra Gayle Carter chronicles the changes in Moroccan laws, institutions, ancillary influences, individuals active in the field, representative films, and film culture during this fifty-year span. Focusing on Moroccan history and institutions relative to the cinema industry such as television, newspaper criticism, and Berber videomaking, What Moroccan Cinema? is an intriguing study of the ways in which three historical periods shaped the Moroccan cinema industry. Carter provides an insightful and thorough treatment of the cinema institution, discussing exhibition and distribution, censorship, and cinema clubs and caravans. Carter grounds her analysis by exploring representative films of each respective era. The groundbreaking analysis offered in What Moroccan Cinema? will prove especially valuable to those in film and Middle Eastern studies.

"Highly recommended." - CHOICE, March 2010

"[Sandra Gayle Carter 's] magnificent book What Moroccan Cinema?: A Historical and Critical Study, 1956-2006 draws on a huge amount of research to give readers a rich context for understanding Moroccan cinema in its first 50 years since independence. Carter provides a model for just what it would take to comprehend films from this nation without reducing out questions of funding, audience, changing social history, and the media worlds within which cinema always operates. And she does so without neglecting to provide readings of a substantial number of individual films along the way, regularly juxtaposing discussion of the film text with its reception and financial fate. Her comprehensive study is an invaluable resource for those who want to understand both individual Moroccan films in their historical context, and for those interested in the larger question of the place of Moroccan cultural production (including film, videos, media and ? by extension ? literature) in Moroccan society....Carter is anexcellent guide for helping us to understand the multiple registers within which the dynamic and ever changing Moroccan cinema has operated and continues to operate as Moroccan art and society continue to change. She has done Middle East and North Africa" - Middle East Journal

"[Sandra Gayle Carter 's] magnificent book What Moroccan Cinema?: A Historical and Critical Study, 1956-2006 draws on a huge amount of research to give readers a rich context for understanding Moroccan cinema in its first 50 years since independence. Carter provides a model for just what it would take to comprehend films from this nation without reducing out questions of funding, audience, changing social history, and the media worlds within which cinema always operates. And she does so without neglecting to provide readings of a substantial number of individual films along the way, regularly juxtaposing discussion of the film text with its reception and financial fate. Her comprehensive study is an invaluable resource for those who want to understand both individual Moroccan films in their historical context, and for those interested in the larger question of the place of Moroccan cultural production (including film, videos, media and — by extension — literature) in Moroccan society....Carter is an excellent guide for helping us to understand the multiple registers within which the dynamic and ever changing Moroccan cinema has operated and continues to operate as Moroccan art and society continue to change. She has done Middle East and North African film studies and Moroccan cultural studies a great service." - Middle East Journal

"The author's attention to detail is particularly successful. This attention to background information and the accompanying extensive footnotes ensures the readers realize the complexity of the study and understand how challenging it is to analyze Moroccan cinema as so many factors have to be taken into consideration…. Overall, a successful and fascinating text about the current state and even more so the history of Moroccan cinema." - Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies

"Sandra Gayle Carter's book fills a void in the publication market dedicated to Moroccan's film history. She opens a door to one of the thus far mostly overlooked film industries. Carter's cultural studies' approach to her work is very important for reader positioning because it explains the content as well as the representation of said subject matter throughout the book….Throughout the introduction as well as the chapters, the author's attention to detail is particularly successful. This attention to background information and the accompanying extensive footnotes ensures the readers realize the complexity of the study and understand how challenging it is to analyze the Moroccan cinema….Overall, a successful and fascinating text about the current state and even more so the history of Moroccan cinema." - Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies