Film of the Week
A film every Wednesday at 5pm Jerusalem Time
Fertile Memory (1981)
Documentary, 1h 39m
Fertile Memory is the feature debut of pioneering director Michel Khleifi. Lyrically blending both documentary and narrative elements, Khleifi skillfully and lovingly crafts a portrait of two Palestinian women whose individual struggles both define and transcend the politics that have torn apart their homes and their lives.
“Both Sahar and Romia are trapped by the society in which they live, but they experience this stuckness differently. Sahar possesses the words, the other doesn’t. Romia exists, but without defining herself as an individual. Both are frustrated by history, the intellectual one perhaps doubly so for her awareness of this frustration, of the loneliness imposed on her by her situation as a divorcée.
Romia accepts her solitude after becoming a widow without bitterness, because she has decided that there is no other way. One character’s words corner those of the other, and I insisted on the film to work in that way, so that the viewer reacts to it, takes active part in the film, becomes an accomplice.”
— Michel Khleifi
Director: Michel Khleifi
Cinematographers: Marc-André Batigne & Yves van der Meer
Sound: Ricardo Castro
Editor: Moufida Tlatli
Featuring: Farah Hatoum & Sahar Khalifeh
“Fertile Memory proves that Palestinian cinema, and therefore the Palestinian cause, has everything to gain (qua ideological effectiveness) from broadening the range of cinematographic approaches and discourses on the Palestinian situation.”