Palestine

Eighty years later, Theo Panagopoulos sheds a bitter light on archival footage. The director builds a dystopian bridge between the harbinger of the Nakba in 1948 and today’s genocide. Where are the plants and the people now? Do they still colour the regions?

When peace proves impossible, all means are justified to defend a political cause. That’s what the suicide-commandos argue. Jocelyne Saab was the first journalist to be able to film these young people, aged between 16 and 20, who were training daily in a secret underground base.

Palestinian Basma Alsharif examines cyclical political conflicts and counters colonialism’s legacy through satire. Deep Sleep is an immersive performance film in which the artist films under self-hypnosis in Athens and Malta.

Lamees Almakkawy’s films can be found at the intersection of documentary and fiction, with a particular focus on performance and identity. Dancing Palestine is centered around the dabke, a Palestinian folk dance.

On the intersection between performance and film, Palestinian filmmaker Noor Abed’s work explores human relationships. For example, our songs were ready for all wars to come is an 8mm footage choreography of playing women whose stories are linked by communal mourning rituals.

This short video essay, created at the request of the Singapore Art Museum, explores how Palestinian gamers mimic life under colonial occupation in Los Santos as a virtual proxy of the state of Palestine. 

Conceptual artist Emily Jacir creates films and installations that focus on the oppression of the Palestinian people. In this intimate film, simultaneously a video essay and a diary, Jacir pleads to register  her childhood home and neighbourhood, “before a crime is inevitably committed.”

With her films, pioneering journalist Jocelyne Saab gives exiled warriors and displaced people a voice. Her work is poetic but also has a strong awareness of her subjective role as a documentary filmmaker.

The footage in this rare film by legendary filmmaker Mustafa Abu Ali was shot by a French news team, after which Abu Ali edited it into one of the earliest films about the occupied territory in Gaza.

Eén maal per jaar mogen de voormalige inwoners van Ma’loul terug keren naar hun door Israël bezette dorp. Tijdens de traditionele picknick documenteert de Palestijns-Belgische filmmaker Michel Khleifi hoe de geschiedenis van deze plek in de herinneringen van de oude generaties en in de verbeelding van hun kinderen verder leeft.