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Abbas Arnaout

Jordanian director and writer

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ4663733
Source-derived summary

Abbas Arnaout (Arabic: عباس أرناؤوط) (born (1944-10-23)23 October 1944) is a Jordanian director and writer, most known recently for being the founder and festival director of the Aljazeera International Documentary Film Festival, as well as his documentary film making career.

Abbas Arnaout studied film direction in the United Kingdom, and specialized in directing drama and television documentaries. Arnaout was the managing director of the Jordanian Television (now known as JRTV), but left in 1975 to work in Dubai TV. He directed several television series during his time at Dubai TV.

He also directed several documentary films, most of which are politically themed, documenting the recent history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. One of his prominent documentaries is Al Khiam, which chronicles and portrays the nature of the Khiam detention center by the Israeli forces prior to their withdrawal from south Lebanon.

In 1996, Abbas Arnaout moved to work at Al Jazeera, and, in 2004, founded the Aljazeera International Documentary Film Festival. He currently is the director of the festival.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Abbas Arnaout” is jordanian director and writer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Abbas, Arnaout and Jordanian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1944, 1975, 1996, 2004—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1944-10-23. For this dossier, Abbas, Arnaout and Jordanian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “jordanian director and writer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4663733. VIAF identifies the subject as 305830607. The Library of Congress control number is nr98002126. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1975, 1996 and 2004.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Abbas Arnaout”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Abbas Arnaout primary sources, Abbas Arnaout archive and Abbas research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Abbas Arnaout”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Abbas Arnaout” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.