Mary Jirmanus Saba (Geography PhD '24) explores how the decade following the Arab Spring has reshaped militant Arab cinema. In her new Antipode article, she introduces the concept of the “character-driven resilience documentary”—a subgenre that foregrounds individual narratives of resilience rather than collective radical struggle. Saba argues that while this form powerfully humanizes uprisings, it also subtly dilutes their original radical potential. By tracing the evolution of militant cinema from its 1960s origins through the 1990s video art era to contemporary works, she highlights the political significance of this shift and proposes a fresh agenda for understanding and critiquing militant visual storytelling.
Saba is currently a UC Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz.