Searching For Solidarity (Screening)
Program
‘I Signed the Petition’ (Mahdi Fleifel, 2018) 11min
A conversation between two friends about the effectiveness and implications of publicly supporting the cultural boycott of Israel. One friend is wracked with worry having signed a petition asking Radiohead not to play Tel Aviv, the other is more sanguine. Their conversation offers a glimpse of what it is to be a Palestinian in today’s world.
CR: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8150762/
‘Kings and Extras: Digging for the Palestinian Image’ (Azza El-Hassan, 2004) 64 min
The films of the PLO Media Unit were supposed to show a self-determined image of Palestinian reality – and they went missing during the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. In a “road-movie” from Palestine to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, the director Azza El-Hassan follows the contradicting and confusing clues as to the whereabouts of the lost archive. The increasingly absurd search finally leads her to a martyr’s graveyard, where the films are said to be buried and where, for obvious reasons, no one is willing to dig. While Azza’s search for lost images leads her down various dead ends, she is confronted with new clues and starts to construct her own story. The film reflects the situation in the Middle East – a failed revolution, the problematic relationship with the Arab neighbours, the question of a Palestinian identity today. Azza El-Hassan shows myths, life stories and life lies, the personal effects of defeat and loss. She even brings some humour to the tragedy of the situation – to which she simultaneously feels a sense of belonging and opposition.
CR: https://www.palestinefilminstitute.org/en/pfp/archive/kings-and-extras
Click here to register (first come first serve)