Unseen Palestinians
Film screenings curated by Nahed Awwad
When we think of Palestine, what are the images coming to our minds? And which are the pictures we are missing from the depiction of Palestine and Palestinians? For one, there is the historic dimension, on a collective and on a personal level, that is surely missing from the image coming up in a general audience’s mind’s eye. Just as important is to add the portrayal of Palestinian women as individuals with agency and independence as a counter-image to those prevalent in the Western Media. This collection of Palestinian films will contribute to revising the image of Palestine in these two dimensions.
Additional online Screening !
From Friday December 11, 5 PM Berlin time until Sunday December 13, 2020, Midnight Berlin time, two films by Mahasen Nasser-Eldin could be watched on Vimeo.
The Q & A session happened via Zoom on
Sunday December 13, 2020, 11am Berlin time:
Nahed Awwad and Mahasen Nasser-Eldin
talked about
Restoring Memory through Archive
We will soon post the link to the recorded conversation.
When we think of archive, an official kind of collection of documents stored safely in a library, a museum or a similar place, open to the public, comes to mind. Something assembled by specialists to provide a neutral body that helps support, reinforce and confirm a collective memory. What happens if those official archives in large parts don’t exist anymore – because they were destroyed or otherwise lost? How does this missing link between history and memory change the latter? And how does one go about trying to restore archives, both using and restoring memories both private and collective; how do they complement and complete one another? These are some of the questions Nahed Awwad will discuss with Mahasen Nasser-Eldin in relation to the two following films screened:
Restored picture (2012) 30 mins
Director: Mahasen Nasser-Eldin
We travel in this documentary between Bethlehem, Haifa and Nazareth to explore the life of Karimeh Abbud – the first female photographer in pre-1948 Palestine. Born in Bethlehem in 1893, Karimeh rapidly rose to prominence in a traditionally male-dominated profession after receiving her first camera as a teenager. Her photos are important historical records of life in Palestine in the early 1900s.
The Silent Protest: Jerusalem 1929 (2019) 20mins
Director: Mahasen Nasser-Eldin
On 26 October 1929, Palestinian women launched their women’s movement in Jerusalem. Approximately 300 women converged into the city from all over Palestine. They held a silent demonstration through a car convoy across the city in protest at the British High Commissioner’s bias against Arabs in the Buraq uprising. This is their story.
2021
Friday Feb 5, 5pm – Sunday Feb 7, 12 am | Via Vimeo
A Magical Substance Flows Into Me (2016) 66 mins
Writer & director: Jumana Manna
A magical substance flows into me opens with a crackly voice recording of Dr. Robert Lachmann, an enigmatic Jewish-German ethnomusicologist who emigrated to 1930s Palestine. He attempted to establish an archive and department of Oriental Music at the Hebrew University, creating a radio program for the Palestine Broadcasting Service called “Oriental Music”. In the film, Manna follows in Lachmann’s footsteps and visits Kurdish, Moroccan and Yemenite Jews, Samaritans, members of urban and rural Palestinian communities, Bedouins and Coptic Christians, as they exist today within the geographic space of historical Palestine. Engaging them in conversation around their music, while lingering over that music’s history as well as its current, sometimes endangered state, Jumana Manna thus presents a metaphorical excavation of an endlessly contested history.
Friday Feb 12, 5pm – Sunday Feb 14, 12 am | Via Vimeo
Recollection (2015) 70 mins
Writer & director: Kamal Aljafari
A visual tour around Jaffa, through rare archived footage that subtly depicts every house, road or square. A visual memory record of a city, people and parents in a city that was once known as the “Bride of the Mediterranean”.
Artist talk at 5pm (CET) on Sunday February 14, 2021
Via ZOOM, please register here:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAkcu6rrDgsE9Ic2js-9piRmni-GbTl0WdS
Fri March 5, 5pm to Sun March 7, 12am | Via Vimeo
Speed Sisters (2015) 85mins
Director: Amber Fares
The Speed Sisters are the first all-woman race car driving team in the Middle East. Grabbing headlines and turning heads at improvised tracks across the West Bank, these five women have sped their way into the heart of the gritty, male-dominated Palestinian street car-racing scene. Weaving together their lives on and off the track, SPEED SISTERS takes you on a surprising journey into the drive to go further and faster than anyone thought you could.
Fri March 12, 5pm until Sun March 14, 12 am | Via Vimeo
Amreeka 2009 , 97 minutes
Director: Cherien Dabis
Muna, a single mother in Ramallah, has applied for a visa to the US. When it comes, her son Fadi, an excellent student, convinces her they should go. After an incident at customs begins their exile badly, they join Muna’s sister and family in Illinois. Muna needs a job: although she has two degrees and 15 years’ experience in banking, she settles for work at White Castle, telling the family her job’s at a nearby bank. It’s spring, 2003, and the US invades Iraq. While friends come from unlikely places, Fadi meets prejudice at school. How he’ll respond to it and to American youth culture and how Muna will sort things out with her family are the rest of the story. Tragedy or hope?
Watch the film until Sunday March 14, 12 midnight
Password: Amreeka@ZWaZ2021
https://vimeo.com/521763950
Password: Amreeka@ZWaZ2021