In Formation: Contemporary Visualizations of the Making and Becoming of the Middle Eastern (Mizrahi) Jew, explores contemporary films that examine the racialization of the Middle Eastern Jew between 1880-1948 – years of mass political shifts formative of the Middle East, including the decline of the Ottoman Empire, emerging nationalisms in the region, and the Zionist colonization of Palestine leading up to the Nakba and foundation of Israel. This presentation will examine several exemplary pieces out of the growing body of film work by Jewish and non-Jewish artists in the Middle East who, especially in the past two decades, cultivate non-nationalist and anti-nationalist depictions of the realities of the transition of MENA Jews from inhabitants of various faith-based identifications and local belongings to racialized Jews placed within the sealed containment of Jewish ethnicity allegedly inherently longing for the “true” homeland of Palestine/Israel. Such films as Rola Khayyat’s From Brooklyn to Beirut, Yamin Masika’s Voices from Istanbul, and Kathy Wazana’s They Were Promised the Sea employ and enact the theme of returning to the homeland of Beirut, Istanbul, or Marrakech, to critically reflect on the liminal times and racialized transitions that took hold of elders and ancestors in the filmmakers’ family or community. The filmmakers examine the ways that they still feel and embody the repercussions of these transitions while holding on to residues of various pasts pre-racialization.