Stories of desert landscapes, cutting-edge production facilities, and lavish festivals often dominate narratives about film and digital media on the Arabian Peninsula. However, there is a more complicated history that reflects long-standing interconnections between the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, and Indian Ocean. Just as these waters are fluid spaces, so too is the flow of film and digital media between cultures in East Africa, Europe, North Africa, South Asia, Southwest Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Introduction: Interconnecting Histories and Migrating Cultures, by Dale Hudson and Alia Yunis1. Area Studies and Its Afterlives: Perspectives from the Gulf, by Nelida Fuccaro2. Petrocolonial Genealogies of Cinema in the Gulf, by Firat Oruc3. Interview with Ammar Al Attar on Cinemas in the UAE Exhibition, by Ammar Al Attar and Dale Hudson4. Audible Love: Letter Songs, Vocal Letters, and the Aurality of Love across the Indian Ocean, by Bindu Menon5. Ultimate Slaves in the Dead Zone: Blackness in Iranian Sacred Defense Cinema, by Parisa Vaziri6. Dreams for Sale or the Challenges of Representing UAE through the Lens of Malayalam Cinema, by Sebastian Thejus Cherian7. Transnational Coproductions and Questions of International Festival Films from Saudi Arabia and Oman, by Karolina Ginalska8. Import-Re-Export: Reconsidering the Film Festival as a Port Economy, by Kay Dickinson9. Peeking behind the Curtain: Gulf Filmmakers Imagine the Lives of Female Migrant Domestic Workers in the Arabian Peninsula, by Suzi Mirgani10. Reorienting the Gaze: Emirati Women behind the Camera, by Chrysavgi Papagianni11. Arabia's Ambivalent Auteur: Meshal al-Jaser's Cinematic Vision for the New Saudi Arabia, by Sean Foley12. Covering Critiques: Film and New Media Artwork in the UAE, by Elizabeth Derderian13. The Gulf between Students: The First Decade of the Gulf's Longest Running Film Festival, by Alia Yunis and Sascha RitterIndex