Pipeline Cinema, by Mona Damluji (Center for Middle East Studies)

Pipeline Cinema explores the intertwined histories of documentary film and the oil industry in mid-twentieth century Iran and Iraq. Reading against the grain of oil company archives, Mona Damluji reveals how wells, pipelines, pumping stations, and refineries were sites of cinematic production and exhibition, at once normalizing and challenging neocolonial extraction. Shining a light on cultural workers and labor movements, this book offers a distinctly humanistic lens on an otherwise dehumanizing petroleum industry.