Cinema of Palestine | |
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No. of screens | 2 (2007) [1] |
• Per capita | 0.1 per 100,000 (2007) [1] |
Number of admissions (2007) [2] | |
Total | 64,026 |
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Cinema of Palestine is relatively young in comparison to Arab cinema as a whole.[ citation needed ] Palestinian films are not exclusively produced in Arabic and some are even produced in English and French. [3] Elia Suleiman has emerged as one of the most notable working Palestinian directors. [4]
In contrast to the way some other locations with associations to film industry are named in casual parlance, Palestinian cinematic film producers aren't said[ according to whom? ] to be part of 'Pallywood' as that word is used in reference to a term of propaganda.
The first Palestinian film to be made is generally believed to be a documentary on King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia's visit in 1935 to Palestine, made by Ibrahim Hassan Sirhan (or Serhan), based in Jaffa. [5] [6] Sirhan followed the King and around Palestine, "from Lod to Jaffa and from Jaffa to Tel Aviv". The result was a silent movie that was presented at the Nabi Rubin festivals. Following this documentary, Sirhan joined Jamal al-Asphar to produce a 45-minute film called The Realized Dreams, aiming to "promote the orphans' cause". Sirhan and al-Asphar also produced a documentary about Ahmad Hilmi Pasha, a member of the Higher Arab Commission. [5] [7] In 1945 Sirhan established the Arab Film Company with Ahmad Hilmi al-Kilani. The company launched the feature film Holiday Eve, which was followed by preparations for the next film A Storm at Home. The films themselves were lost in 1948, when Sirhan had to flee Jaffa after the town was bombarded. [8]
The 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight (known in Arabic as the Nakba) had a devastating effect on Palestinian society, including its nascent film industry. Cinematic endeavours, requiring infrastructure, professional crews, and finance, nearly ceased for two decades. [10] Individual Palestinian participated in the film-production of neighbouring countries. It is reported that Sirhan was involved with the production of the first Jordanian feature film, The Struggle in Jarash (1957), and another Palestinian, Abdallah Ka'wash, directed the second Jordanian feature film, My Homeland, My Love, in 1964. [11]
After 1967, Palestinian cinema found itself under the auspices of the PLO, funded by Fatah and other Palestinian organisations like PFLP and DFLP. More than 60 films were made in this period, mostly documentaries. The first film festival dedicated to Palestinian films was held in Baghdad in 1973, and Baghdad also hosted the next two Palestinian film festivals, in 1976 and 1980. [12] Mustafa Abu Ali was one of the early Palestinian film directors, and he helped found the Palestinian Cinema Association in Beirut in 1973. Only one dramatic movie was made during the period, namely Return to Haifa in 1982, an adaptation of a short novel by Ghassan Kanafani. [13]
Different organisations set up archives for Palestinian films. The largest such archive was run by PLO's Film Foundation/Palestinian Film Unit. In 1982, when the PLO was forced out of Beirut, the archive was put into storage (in the Red Crescenty Hospital), from where it "disappeared" under circumstances which are still unclear. [14] Recently, several films from the archive were located in the Israel Defense Forces Archive in Tel HaShomer by scholar and curator Rona Sela. [15] Sela has called for the release of these films, and for the declassification of other Palestinian films that remain closed in the IDF Archive. [16]
The 1996 drama/comedy Chronicle of a Disappearance received international critical acclaim, [17] and it became the first Palestinian movie to receive national release in the United States. [18] A break-out film for its genre, it won a New Director's Prize at the Seattle International Film Festival and a Luigi De Laurentiis Award at the Venice Film Festival. [19] Notable film directors of this period include [20] Michel Khleifi, Rashid Masharawi, Ali Nassar and Elia Suleiman.
An international effort was launched in 2008 to reopen Cinema Jenin, a cinema located in the Jenin Refugee Camp.
In 2008, three Palestinian feature films and an estimated eight shorts were completed, more than ever before. [21]
In 2010, Hamas, the governing authority in the Gaza Strip, announced the completion of a new film. Titled The Great Liberation, the film depicts the destruction of Israel by Palestinians. [22]
Currently in the Gaza Strip, all film projects must be approved by Hamas' Culture Ministry before they can be screened in public. Independent filmmakers have claimed that the Culture Ministry cracks down on content not conforming to Hamas edicts. In a notable 2010 case, Hamas banned the short film Something Sweet, directed by Khalil al-Muzzayen, which was submitted at the Cannes Film Festival. Hamas banned it from being shown locally due to a four-second scene where a woman is shown with her hair uncovered. In 2011, a film festival hosted by the Gaza Women's Affairs Center included documentaries and fictional pieces on women's issues, but the Culture Ministry censored numerous scenes. One film had to remove a scene where a woman lowered one shoulder of her dress, and another had to remove a scene of a man swearing. [23]
Films from Palestine have been broadcast internationally through services such as Netflix. [24]
Palestinians hold a diverse range of views on the peace process with Israel, though the goal that unites them is the end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Some Palestinians accept a two-state solution, with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip forming a distinct Palestinian state, whereas other Palestinians insist on a one-state solution with equal rights for all citizens whether they are Muslims, Christians or Jews. In this scenario, Palestinian refugees may be allowed to resettle the land they were forced to flee in the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight. However, widespread anti-Semitic sentiments in Palestinian society and Palestinian militancy have hindered the peace process.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict include the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, borders, security, water rights, Palestinian freedom of movement, and the Palestinian right of return.
Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Founded on 15 November 1988 and officially governed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), it claims the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as its territory, all of which have been Israeli-occupied territories since the 1967 Six-Day War. The West Bank contains 165 Palestinian enclaves that are under partial Palestinian rule, but the remainder, including 200 Israeli settlements, is under full Israeli control. The Gaza Strip was governed by Egypt but conquered by Israel in 1967. Israel governed the region until it withdrew in 2005. The United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and various human-rights organizations still consider Gaza to be held under Israeli military occupation, due to what they regard as Israel's effective military control over the territory; Israel disputes this. Hamas seized power after winning the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. This has since been ensued by a blockade of the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt.
Ma'alul was a Palestinian village, with a mixed population of primarily Muslims with a substantial minority of Palestinian Christians, that was depopulated and destroyed by Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Located six kilometers west of the city of Nazareth, many of its inhabitants became internally displaced refugees, after taking refuge in Nazareth and the neighbouring town of Yafa an-Naseriyye. Despite having never left the territory that came to form part of Israel, the majority of the villagers of Maalul, and other Palestinian villages like Andor and Al-Mujidal, were declared "absentees", allowing the confiscation of their land under the Absentees Property Law.
The history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict traces back to the late 19th century when Zionists sought to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Ottoman-controlled Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, issued by the British government, endorsed the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which led to an influx of Jewish immigrants to the region. Following World War II and the Holocaust, international pressure mounted for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, leading to the creation of Israel in 1948.
Elia Suleiman is a Palestinian film director and actor. He is best known for the 2002 film Divine Intervention, a modern tragicomedy on living under occupation in Palestine which won the Jury Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. Suleiman's cinematic style is often compared to that of Jacques Tati and Buster Keaton, for its poetic interplay between "burlesque and sobriety". He is married to Lebanese singer and actress Yasmine Hamdan.
Middle Eastern cinema collectively refers to the film industries of West Asia and part of North Africa. By definition, it encompasses the film industries of Egypt, Iran, Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. As such, the film industries of these countries are also part of the cinema of Asia, or in the case of Egypt, Africa.
The Arab–Israeli conflict is the phenomenon involving political tension, military conflicts, and other disputes between various Arab countries and Israel, which escalated during the 20th century. The roots of the Arab–Israeli conflict have been attributed to the support by Arab League member countries for the Palestinians, a fellow League member, in the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict; this in turn has been attributed to the simultaneous rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism towards the end of the 19th century, though the two national movements had not clashed until the 1920s.
Rashid Masharawi is a Palestinian film director, born in Gaza in 1962 to a family of refugees from Jaffa. He grew up in the Shati refugee camp.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the State of Palestine:
Al-Shati, also known as Shati or Beach camp, is a Palestinian refugee camp located in the northern Gaza Strip along the Mediterranean Sea coastline in the Gaza Governorate, and more specifically Gaza City.
Al-Kasaba Theatre and Cinematheque is a cinema in the city of Ramallah, West Bank, Palestine. It was established in 1970 during Israeli occupation for playwrights and eventually began presenting films. Al-Kasaba is the only official multipurpose cinema in the Palestinian territories.
Ibrahim Hassan Kheite (1930–1984), also known as Ibrahim Ghannam, was a Palestinian visual artist and painter. He was born in the coastal town of Yajur near Haifa in Palestine and later resided in Tal Al-Za'atar refugee camp, located north of Beirut in Lebanon.
Omar al-Qattan is a Palestinian Kuwaiti British film director and film producer.
Michel Khleifi (Arabic: ميشيل خليفي}, born in 1950 in Nazareth, is a Palestinian of Israeli citizenship film writer, director and producer, presently based in Belgium.
Wedding in Galilee is a 1987 film directed by Michel Khleifi. It marks the first feature film made in Palestine by a Palestinian director and was awarded the International Critics Prize at Cannes in 1987. Produced during an era when there were scarce cinematic depictions of Palestinian existence, Wedding in Galilee revolves around the marriage ceremony of a young couple in a Palestinian village situated in Galilee, northern Israel.
Nabi Rubin was a Palestinian village in central Palestine region, what is now Israel, located 14.5 kilometers (9.0 mi) west of Ramla, just northeast of Yibna and 18 kilometers (11 mi) south of Jaffa. The village was situated on the southern banks of Wadi al-Sarar, known in Hebrew as Sorek Stream, at an elevation of 25 meters (82 ft) above sea level.
Nurith Gertz is an Israeli Professor Emerita of Hebrew literature and film at The Open University of Israel. She served as head of the theoretical track at the Department of Film and Television, at Tel Aviv University, and heads the Department of Culture and Production at Sapir College.
Najwa Najjar is a film writer and director. She was born to a Jordanian father and Palestinian mother. She began her career making commercials and has worked in both documentary and fiction since 1999.