"from a certain chaos into an aesthetic dimension"
Palestinian films to watch: an extensive yet incomplete list
What cinema can do is the reordering of this reality from a certain chaos or from a certain order into an aesthetic dimension. — Elia Suleiman, Palestinian director and actor
When I feel deeply disturbed by the ongoing genocides we are witnessing, the continual attack on Palestine, the sheer magnitude of destruction of lives, culture, histories, and generations we are living through/watching/witnessing… I return to this post from piecemeal reflecting on Palestinian’s kinship to the land. In the post, writer, artist, poet, and land steward d. hunter also provides links to joyful moments by Palestinians. d. writes: Every life taken in Gaza is a seed that does not get to go on to love and be loved, to care and be cared for, or to birth a new life that can sustain hundreds more. d’s words and reflections remind me that Palestinian life is a joyful occasion, that Palestinians existed far before Israel was ever conceived, and will continue to last far beyond its downfall.
Below, you will find synopses of recent Palestinian films and links to PDFs, online resources, and archives focused on Palestinian cinema.
We No Longer Prefer Mountains (2023) dir, Inas Halabi
WE NO LONGER PREFER MOUNTAINS takes place in the Druze town of Dalyet el Carmel, in northern Palestine, pulling the viewer into a surreal world of geographic isolation, shrouded mysticism and a locale shaped by co-optation, coercion, and control. Weaving together intimate engagements with members of the community, in shared domestic spaces and outdoor environments, the film sets out to explore how the inner politics of the Druze have been controlled and reshaped as a result of the establishment of Israel in 1948.
This film is only available in the UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Palestine, Canada, USA and Italy.
Foragers (2022) dir, Jumana Manna
Foragers depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in Palestine/Israel with wry humor and a meditative pace. Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee and Jerusalem, it employs fiction, documentary and archival footage to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs. The restrictions prohibit the collection of the artichoke-like ’akkoub and za’atar (thyme), and have resulted in fines and trials for hundreds caught collecting these native plants. For Palestinians, these laws constitute an ecological veil for legislation that further alienates them from their land while Israeli state representatives insist on their scientific expertise and duty to protect. Following the plants from the wild to the kitchen, from the chases between the foragers and the nature patrol, to courtroom defenses, Foragers captures the joy and knowledge embodied in these traditions alongside their resilience to the prohibitive law. By reframing the terms and constraints of preservation, the film raises questions around the politics of extinction, namely who determines what is made extinct and what gets to live on.
Strange Cities Are Familiar (2019) dir, Saeed Taji Farouky
Ashraf has been a political refugee in London for 30 years, content with spending his days in his study or his local social club. One day he receives a call from his friend, telling Ashraf that his son Moataz has been fatally wounded in a protest. His friend pleads with Ashraf to return home. As Ashraf struggles to return to Palestine, he recollects moments from his past - memories that are a heavy burden and a reminder of his failures and mistakes.
Ghost Hunting (2017) dir, Raed Andoni
For more than 25 years, one image has been haunting director Raed Andoni – that of a boy (18), head covered with a bag and handcuffed, sitting inside a prison yard. The same sounds always accompany this image: metal doors opening and footsteps slowly approaching. Through the lower part of the bag, the boy can see a man wearing white sneakers walking away. A survivor of the prison experience himself, Raed has fragmented memories that he can’t distinguish as real or imaginary.
In order to confront the ghost that haunts him, he decides to rebuild the Al-Moscobiya investigation centre in an empty warehouse near Ramallah. A casting call for former prisoners results in an eclectic group of construction workers, a blacksmith, an architect and an artist. As they build a copy of their former jail based on their own memories, Raed digs deep into their memories, triggered by reenactments and roleplaying. For this purpose, he focuses on the story of Mohammad (50), whose resistance to the investigation methods – stoked by laughter and rebellion – made him a hero among Palestinians.
A World Not Ours (2012) dir, Mahdi Fleifel
A World Not Ours is a passionate, bittersweet account of one family's multi-generational experience living as permanent refugees. Now a Danish resident, director Mahdi Fleifel grew up in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, established in 1948 as a temporary refuge for exiled Palestinians. Today, the camp houses 70,000 people and is the hometown of generations of Palestinians. The filmmaker's childhood memories are surprisingly warm and humorous, a testament to the resilience of the community. Yet his yearly visits reveal the increasing desperation of family and friends who remain trapped in psychological as well as political limbo. Official Selection of the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival.
They Do Not Exist (1974) dir, Mustafa Abu Ali
Salvaged from the ruins of Beirut after 1982, Abu Ali's early film has only recently been made available. Shooting under extraordinary conditions, the director, who worked with Godard on his Ici et Ailleurs (Here and Elsewhere), and founded the PLO's film division, covers conditions in Lebanon's refugee camps, the effects of Israeli bombardments, and the lives of guerrillas in training camps. They Do Not Exist is a stylistically unique work which demonstrates the intersection between the political and the aesthetic. Now recognised as a cornerstone in the development of Palestinian cinema, the film only received its Palestine premiere in 2003, when a group of Palestinian artists "smuggled" the director to a makeshift cinema in his hometown of Jerusalem (into which Israel bars his entry).
In Vitro (2019) dir, Larissa Sansour + Soren Lind
Set in the aftermath of an eco-disaster. A vast bunker under the biblical town of Bethlehem has been converted into an enormous orchard. Using heirloom seeds collected in the final days before the disaster, a group of scientists are preparing to replant the soil above. In the hospital wing of the underground compound, the orchard’s ailing founder, 70-year-old Alia, is lying on her deathbed, as 30-year-old Alia, Dunia’s successor, comes to visit her. Alia is born underground and has never seen the town she’s destined to rebuild.
The talk between the two scientists soon evolve into an intimate dialogue about memory, exile and nostalgia. Central to their discussion is the intricate relationship between past, present and future, with the Bethlehem setting providing a narratively, politically and symbolically charged backdrop.
I Signed The Petition (2018) dir, Mahdi Fleifel
Immediately after a Palestinian-Danish filmmaker signs an online petition, he spirals into self-doubt. He calls an understanding friend in London from his base in Berlin, and the two Palestinians analyze, deconstruct, and interpret the meaning of his choice to publicly support the cultural boycott of Israel. Their conversation is a by turns funny and probing inquiry into exile and Palestinian identity.
Ouroboros (2017) dir, Basma Alsharif
Ouroboros refers to the symbol of the snake eating its tail, inferring a cycle of death and regeneration. With its experimental narrative—whose central character embarks on a journey to shed his pain, only to experience it anew through an undetermined time-space continuum that is alternatively lush and beautiful, haunting and despairing, fraught with physical and historical ruin and uncertain predicaments—the film adheres to a fragmentary, dreamily desultory, aesthetically immersive structure.
Home Movies Gaza (2013) dir, Basma Alsharif
An introduction to the Gaza Strip as a microcosm for the failure of civilization. In an attempt to describe the everyday of a place that struggles for the most basic of human rights, this video claims a perspective from within the domestic spaces of a territory that is complicated, derelict, and altogether impossible to separate from its political identity.
Additional Links!
Palestinian Film Index: The Palestine Film Index is a growing list of films from and about Palestine and the Palestinian struggle for liberation. It also contains a series of texts about Palestinian cinema and filmmaking practices.
Palestinian Cinema Archive: 181 films by Palestinian filmmakers.1
Archiving Palestine: A discussion with filmmaker Azza El-Hassan with Other Cinemas about reclaiming and reviving missing Palestinian film archives through her project THE VOID and her film Kings and Extras: Digging for a Palestinian Image (2004).
Cinema of the Palestinian Revolution A Conversation with Nadia Yaqub by Nicholas Baer2
BOOK: Palestinian Cinema: Landscape, Trauma and Memory by Nurith Gertz (PDFs)
“In this book, two scholars - an Israeli and a Palestinian - in a rare and welcome collaboration, follow the development of Palestinian cinema, commenting on its response to political and social transformations. They discover that the more the social, political and economic conditions worsen and chaos and pain prevail, the more Palestinian cinema becomes involved with the national struggle. As expected, Palestinian cinema has unfolded its national narrative against the Israeli narrative, which tried to silence it.
Key Features
The first, serious comprehensive study of Palestinian film.
A rare collaboration between Israeli and Palestinian scholars.
A reliable insight into Palestinian society and culture, and the Israeli-Palestinian relationship.”
Source: sunday energy #48 by Zeba Blay
Wow, thank you for this!