Why Are Middle-Eastern/Arabic Movies Ignored?

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I
 chat on dozens of movie sites, and movies from this region are ignored.
 I must admit I have seen barely more than a dozen or so, but a couple 
of years ago, after seeing a documentary on TCM, I saw an Egyptian movie
 (Chit-Chat On The Nile) and it was so different, yet so great. I 
remember seeing "Cairo '30" (which was probably the best, not my 
favorite that I mentioned above), "Cairo Station" and "There Is A Man In
 Our House". I can't remember the others, but I'm guessing they were 
probably directed by Henry Barakat, and starred Famen Hamama or Omar 
Sharif. Adapted or written by Mahfouz, who's shown to be one hell of a 
writer. I actually remember reading about him in Time Magazine when I 
was a kid. I also remember telling my aunt, who said, "He was kind of 
perverted" and went on to say how great Khalil Jibran was.

Last
 year, TCM started showing a documentary series called, "Women Make 
Film", and they were saying how many women were producers, directors, 
writers, and leading ladies, of course. I added movies to my 
watch-list... And a few days ago, someone on another site started an 
Egyptian thread.

There's
 some really good Iranian movies. It seems like half are very 
metaphysical. There's a movie within a movie within a movie. I can't 
remember the title, but there was one about this little girl actress, 
and it's done so well, I wasn't sure if it was part of the story, or if 
it was part of the movie they were filming (which we don't discover 
until around that time). Abbas Kiarostami is another name. "Close-Up" is
 an amazing idea, but "Taste of Cherry" is my favorite of his. Even the 
ending is unique and metaphysical.

What
 I've admired the most is the writing, regardless of who it is. A lot of
 social commentary, sometimes political, mixed in with love stories, and
 always searching for some kind of truth within the main characters. The
 "heavies" are always boorish and logical, while the third wheel (the 
single unmarried man) is always the romantic one. The women can't be 
described. Sensuous, but modest. Romantic, but trying to be responsible.
 Traditional at times, but constantly breaking with the past. I should 
point out most of the movies I have seen were from the 1950s and 60s.

"Dry Summer" is an excellent Turkish movie. Great story, acting, etc.

One
 thing that's common in all of them is the beautiful poetry. With the 
story, themes, writing, acting, cinematography, music - everything.

I
 also remember studying the first civilizations in school here in the 
US.. I still remember reading about the first city of Ur, Mesopotamia, 
the beginning of alphabet/writing (Sumerian), the wheel, and a million 
other inventions, such as irrigation, the Tigris and the Euphrates, the 
pyramids, the center of the three major Abrahamic religions, and this 
isn't ignored in the movies, even if it's not explicit. Sometimes you'll
 be watching a love story, and a couple meet by the pyramids, or someone
 tells their friend to meet them in Mosul, but of course the more 
intellectual movies mention politics, the history of societies, you name
 it.... The US is such a young country, there's only so much we can 
extrapolate and make into a movie with the limited palette. 

I
 also remember reading how one movie in the 1950s had such an influence 
in Egypt, that it made it much easier for women to divorce. "JFK" is a 
horrible movie (Jim Garrison is the hero, not stone) but it also helped 
to change the law when it came to transparency.

I'm
 obsessed with chronology, capturing the zeitgeist (as opposed to the 
typical world events) in part to learn about history, trends, influence,
 comparing fiction with real life for its time, evolution of film, so I 
would start with the earliest movies, and move forward, to see how they 
got here at this point in history. I would see more, but finding 
subtitles can be tough, but there are some movies on YouTube (usually 
the popular ones, not the best) and one I really liked from 1972 that I 
saw yesterday after scrolling around Prime and seeing the interesting 
title, "Empire M", and it's a really unique movie. I just saw "The River
 of Love" but the translations could use improvement, and I might try to
 upload my own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeobF02KPeI&t=1313s

Have you seen any?

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