The Palestine Film Institute (PFI) has announced the Palestinian film projects chosen to participate this year in the documentary section of the Cannes Film Festival, CannesDocs.  While visually and narratively engaging, the chosen films represent a cinema of change and resistance, exploring different facets of oppression and the solidarity produced in response to it. The films have a particular focus on the image as an archive; a form of historical record and documentation that will have to be reckoned with. Here, the oppressed and those in solidarity with them circumvent the oppressor by using a universal framework, where Palestine becomes an idea of unstoppable solidarity with every refugee around the world.

The program is a reflection of the mission of the PFI and its keen efforts to provide filmmakers with a framework for research and development by establishing the necessary conditions and professional relationships for these goals. In this particular program, the participants are able to promote their films and to develop them through PFI’s training and guidance, culminating in their participation in the festival.  

PFI confirmed that 80% of Palestinian film production is documentary, and falls within the framework of documenting daily practices. However, what distinguishes the four participating films this year is their ability to examine time, with the understanding that colonization, in its all forms, cannot capture space, unless time is captured as well.  This form of cinema attempts to restore confidence in the oppressed, by understanding, owning and controlling a hierarchical/chronological relationship with time through memory and remembering. 

CONCRETE LAND

Concrete Land, directed by Asmahan Bakirat, documents the life of a Bedouin Palestinian refugee family from Beersheba who currently resides on the outskirts of Amman. The film sheds light on their way of life and their struggle for survival and identity preservation. Most felt in this film is the collision between Bedouin life and urbanization, and the dire consequences of this collision. It sheds light on the seemingly minute changes that now define the life of the family and that impose on it a lifestyle different from its culture and its role in life. The imposed changes present a great challenge to the family as they attempt to preserve their customs and traditions and define their identity. Their humanity is put on display as they deal with one another, struggle with themselves, and manage generational conflicts. This document succeeds in allowing us to reflect on the many contradictions produced by life in urban settings. The film also beautifully highlights the family’s relationship with nature as a necessary source of compatibility with life itself.  

Speaking with the director, she emphasized: “It is necessary to shed a light on the suffering of these people within the framework of the practices that shape their exile and their lives. Moreover it’s possible to relate the film to the experience of refugees everywhere, and their struggle to coexist within their new surroundings.” Regarding her selection among the festival's projects, she stressed, "while focusing on documentaries from the region, this showcase also sheds light on a humanitarian dimension within a global context. So, while it opens doors for Arab participation, it also facilitates understanding ofa group living among us under dire conditions, enabling better and clearer understanding of the other, and restoring a collective awareness of the need for sharing and exchange.”

THREE PROMISES

With a retrospective lens, director Yousef Srouji recalls the events of the second intifada through a focus on his family’s experience of it; in particular that of his mother, who documents the moments of confrontation from inside the house. In her role as a matriarch, she interprets the scenes from the siege  for a family interacting daily with an historical event, and with changes that impacted them all. 

Significantly, Srouji's film is the first documentary about the second intifada free from images of soldiers. It is a personal narrative that sheds light on the inner workings of a family as they deal with the external effects of the intifada from within, including how the possibilities of confronting the occupation in ways not possible before reflect on their daily lives. 

The director’s images contemplate the events that occurred, and how the changes of the time  impact the present moment. While focusing on his mother’s reflection and investigation into her dire present, the director searches chronologically in search of the  truth of what occured. Through this recollection, the past is depicted in the film as a continuous moment in the present. Since memory cannot be presented as a disjointed material, the series of narratives restore an awareness of the present moment, and further reverberate their effects into the future. In this way, the film works to restore the questions and possibilities that the intifada rendered visible, then, now and for the future.

The film also raises the issue of survival and the pressures of leaving Palestine from the point of view of the mother. Thus, the film revolves around three crucial moments (the onset of the intifada, surviving it, and departing) in the life of the family that lived through the uprising, but from a different angle than we are used to seeing. This film is therefore another example of a global phenomena of migrant and refugee families besieged in a reality where fear dominates their survival and migration. 

ALPES

This film, directed by Nael Khleifi, presents an image of solidarity from a Palestinian director. The film depicts the suffering of refugees crossing the French-Italian border through the Alps, and reformulates the meaning of solidarity through the actions of selfless people who also cross in the dark of the cold night to make sure that the refugees survive a month-long, unavoidable and dangerous asylum journey. 

The director reveals unforgettable images of migration, shedding light on the suffering of the refugees globally, grounded in his own Palestinian identity, and the need to act in a world that rejects the other. As the film unfolds, our attention is drawn to the concept of solidarity, and we are urged to reflect on the meaning of displacement and asylum today

The PFI says that this showcase is yet another means to highlight the role that cinema can play in conveying the daily conditions of refugees, and their strategies of survival. The PFI also says that the showcase is an open message to say that we, Palestinians, are in solidarity with every refugee everywhere. 

THE LAST PROJECTIONIST

This film, directed by Alex Bakri, quietly depicts ​​the death of cinema through the character of a lone projectionist, Hussein. He is the last film projectionist in the city of Jenin and he is trying hard to retain his job.

The film is a moment of precise reflection on the life of cinema in our societies that are conditioned by constant change. It restores the image of manual labor for a traditional cinema projectionist who excelled at and loved his profession. Through this intense character, we are faced with the death of a profession that is almost extinct, as this projectionist confronts the reality of the current commercial context of cinema. And therein lies the importance of this film; it allows us  to contemplate the passing of time and the slow death of cinema, and its role in the development of our society as a tool for discovery of the world, hoping for its return.

About the film, the PFI asserted, "This film attempts at restoring the context of cinema's life in our societies, and highlights its inherent death in a time of constant evolution. Hussein's story is a reflection of this development, and a representation of the death of cinema in a society in which it should be regained as a tool for knowledge and human development."

Cinema preserves our participation in the global theatre, and allows us to narrate our stories. Storytelling has been, and remains through our human history, a weapon against global colonization, and through participation, we can transform a moving image to a form of struggle and artistic communication that can open the doors for change and solidarity. 

The PFI deals with Palestinian cinema as an inherited legacy, drawing inspiration for its role from revolutionary cinematic institutions. Therefore, they believe that Palestinian cinematic work is intimately tied to Palestine’s struggle for liberation. 

PFI’s work is centered around the preservation, publishing, production and the continuous support of Palestinian cinema to ensure the presentation of Palestinian stories to the world. Therefore, the PFI hopes to present each year at the Cannes Film Festival, in its various sections, a comprehensive image of Palestine; a Palestine that rises by sharing our culture and artistic expressions through cinema.