Six selected films will be screened for free and open to the public as part of the Art Combating Silence initiative. Art Combating Silence is an initiative of Indonesian artists call against normalization and ignorance of genocide, war crimes, and atrocities against children in Palestine. Films listed are a part of twenty inventories of 16 mm film reels that constitute a collection kept and safeguarded by members of a Japanese Palestine solidarity group in Tokyo. The documentation and digitisation process was made by CRAMP (Centre for Research of Audiovisual Memory Practices) for the Subversive Film research project Tokyo Reels, 2022.
Films to be screened:
Blown by the Wind
Directed by Jack Madvo, Lebanon, 1971
A series of vibrant drawings painted by Palestinian children are brought to life in Blown By the Wind. The montaged still images glimpse at their everyday lives, their memories and imagination following their displacement and seeking of refuge in Lebanon following the Six Day War in 1967. The film was officially selected for the Venice Film Festival and won awards at the Leipzig Film Festival, as well as in Czechoslovakia and Tunis.
Land Day
Directed by Ghaleb Shaath, Japan, 1983
The original film was shot around the time of the first commemoration of Land Day in 1977, and it documents the different events taking place in Palestinian cities and villages of the Lower Galillee region in occupied Palestine. The remembrance events are used to garner witness accounts to what happened in 1976 during the demonstrations against the continuous land
grab of Palestinian land. Other interviews with mayors and heads of local councils provide context and a history of Land Day. The screened version is the Japanese adaption of the original “Land Day”, produced six years later with additional historical context of the Palestinian struggle and Land Day itself.
Palestine: The Path to Tragedy
Directed by Don Catchlove, United Kingdom, 1970
Commissioned by the Arab League, the director Don Catchlove repurposes the colonial British archives to explore the Palestinian question, starting from the British Mandate and followed by the Palestinian uprising against the mandate and the creeping Zionist settlement project. Although made by a British director, the film is considered as one of the early attempts to decolonise the archives in relation to Palestine, presenting a narrative of resistance that comes from within the archive itself, countering the western narrative about the events that led to the colonisation of Palestine.
Scenes of the Occupation from Gaza
Directed by Mostafa Abu Ali, Lebanon, 1973
A rare film by the legendary filmmaker Mustafa Abu Ali, one of the founders of the Palestine Film Unit, the first filmic arm of the Palestinian revolution. Shot by a French news team, the footage was edited by Mustafa in Lebanon to produce one of the earliest films on the occupied territory in Gaza. Scenes of the Occupation from Gaza employs experimental editing techniques to produce a cinematically and politically subversive film. The film won the prize as best film at the Damascus Film Festival in 1973 and was screened at multiple festivals. It was the only film produced by the Palestine Cinema Group, which in 1974 came to the Palestine Cinema Institute.
The Road to a Palestine State
NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), Japan, 1974
The first episode of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation’s Middle East Today television mini-series (December 1974 –February 1975), The Road to a Palestine State reports on the future of a Palestinian state following the international recognition of the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. The episode opens with Yasser Arafat’s speech at the UN in 1974. Throughout the film, the reporter meets and speaks to a Palestinian doctor, a community organiser and members of political factions, particularly from the leftist PFLP and DFLP, to show the disagreements within the internal politics of the PLO. We see shots from the streets of Beirut, the city and refugee camps, to relay the sense of the everyday life of Palestinians following the international recognition of the PLO.
The Urgent Call of Palestine
Directed by Ismail Shammout, P.L.O., 1973
During his time as the director of the Cultural Arts Section of the PLO, the Palestinian painter Ismail Shammout also actively engaged with the film unit of the organisation. In this short film, we see the Palestinian singer Zeinab Shaath performing her song The Urgent Call of Palestine. This song became an important solidarity ballad, urging the world to hear the Palestinian call. When the ballad is swiftly interrupted by Kamal Nasser, we hear him say: “We want the world to know that we have a cause”.
The film screening will take place at Forum Film Dokumenter Secretariat on July 20, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. All films screened are made possible because of Tokyo Reels.
