Mahasen Nasser-Eldin
Salim Abu-Jabal
Yousef Nateel
Filmlab Palestine in cooperation with Sheffield Hallam University grant a fund of $60,000 for Three Documentary Films and Film restoration projects.
In cooperation with Sheffield Hallam University, Filmlab is collaborating on the “Creative Interruptions in Palestinian Cinema” project. Three Palestinian filmmakers from different regions of historic Palestine will receive a grant to work on their films that challenge Zionist narratives and speak of Palestinian experience.
The films include:
‘October 1929’ - Mahasen Nasser-Eldin
The film visualizes the establishment of the Palestinian women’s movement in 1929, using memory and oral tradition as an approach to storytelling.
‘Gazagraph’ - Yousef Nateel
‘Gazagraph’ traces Nateel’s search for Gaza’s history through its old photographs. Nateel travels across Gaza to retrieve archives of negatives from old photographic studios. In retrieving these images, he tells the culturally rich and complex history of Gaza past and present.
‘Seven Years Later’- Salim Abu Jabal
“Seven Years Later” reflects on the experience and development of young adults in the West Bank whom Jabal first met as children, seven years ago. The film takes this personal archive as a starting point to explore contemporary experience of living under occupation.
Creative Interruptions: Grassroots creativity, state structures and disconnection as a space for ‘radical openness is an Arts and Humanities Council research project headed by Brunel University. This project aims to explore the ways in which disenfranchised communities use the arts to challenge hegemonies and make their voices heard. Sheffield Hallam University, Filmlab Palestine and Sheffield Palestine Cultural Exchange are leading the strand on Palestinian cinema.
The research on Palestinian Cinema is exploring the central role that the retrieval, preservation and re-use of archive holds within Palestinian cultural production. The selected filmmakers use a variety of types of archive as a central device in their films, offering contrasting ways of thinking about archive and the creative ways they can be used in storytelling.
Filmmaker Azza El Hassan, is script and directing consultant on the Palestinian strand and will support all filmmakers in their productions.
Dr Anandi Ramamurthy and El Hassan are also working on restoring and presenting archival films from the revolutionary period of Palestinian Cinema to support the restoration of Palestinian cinematic memory. Stolen during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, this retrieved collection will include two films relating to Hani Jawarieh: Zahrat Al-Madan, AKA The Flower of all Cities (1969), directed by: Ali Siam/ Cinematography: Hani Jawarieh and Palestine in the Eye 1976, directed by the PLO Film Unit/Mustafa Abu Ali.
These films were found by El Hassan at Jawarieh’s family home, and she has led their restoration. Other films that have been digitized and restored include Kassem Hawal’s Palestinian Identity (1984); The Urgent Call of Palestine and Memories and Fire by Ismaeel Shammout.
The films were screened during Filmlab Days of Cinema 2018 in the West Bank and Gaza. They also were screened in the UK and France during the next 18 months.
Previous Participants
- Yousef Nateel - Gazagraph
- Salim Abu Jabal - Seven Years Later
- Mahasen Nasser-Eldin - October 1929