Palestinian Films Review
accompanying Everyday Forms of Resistance exhibition
Personal Is Political: Film Forms of Resistance
The film review that accompanies the Everyday Forms of Resistance exhibition presents works by young artists of Palestinian origin who live in Palestine or are members of the vast diaspora. An important common element of their art is the autobiographical aspect, an interest in the past, which is seen as a means of (re)defining identity in the context of a heritage ousted by external forces. The presented films creatively unforget the hidden, inaccessible or forbidden elements of the daily life in apartheid.
Eco-trauma in the face of climate disaster is the topic of Palestine Blues (directed by Nida Sinnokrot), Wild Relatives (directed by Jumana Manna) and The Wanted 18 (directed by Amer Shomali and Paul Cowan). Climate annihilation is inextricably intertwined with the will to survive, to save history and to gain the agency to create reality anew – those motifs are explored in In Vitro (directed by Larissa Sanour and Søren Lind), The Parrot (directed by Darin J. Sallam and Amjad Al-Rasheed) and Ambience (directed by Wisam Al Jafari). Experimental filmmakers of the new generation return to the topics of excavation from the rubble, exposure to daylight and preservation in memory: Emily Jacir (letter to a friend), Milena Desse (The Sun and the Looking Glass) and Kamal Al Jafari (An Unusual Summer), consciously drawing on the work of masters such as Hany abu Asad, Elia Suleiman or May Odeh, whose work was acclaimed globally and put Palestinian cinema on the map.
The review will conclude with the Polish premiere of the tender romantic comedy Gaza mon amour starring Hiam Abbas, known to Polish audience from the TV series Succession (she is also the star of the film In Vitro presented in the review, which premiered in the Danish Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale), followed by a screening of Inch'Allah (“God willing”), a film about the Global North's involvement in Palestinian everyday life.
To view detailed programme please click here.
- Text
- Aleksandra Jeglińska
- Translation
- Kalina Bartnicka
