Palestinian Identity 1983 dir Kassem Hawal (40 mins) Restoration Director: Kassem Hawal

Kassem Hawal fled from his native Iraq after political persecution in 1970. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s he worked with the PLO Film Unit. His vision was the liberation of the Cinema of the region from imperialist and class exploitation. Palestinian Identity is a rare example of a PLO film made after their departure from Beirut. It documents the burnt and destroyed cultural Palestinian Revolution and educational centres from which the Israeli Glow of Memories 1972 military stole films, photographs, historical and dir Ismail Shammout (12 mins) contemporary manuscripts. The film includes Restoration Director: Bashar Shammout interviews with key members of the Palestinian cultural scene such as Mahmoud Darwish and Centring around an old Palestinian man who is Ismail Shammout and those in charge of cultur- the subject of Shammout’s painting Memories al and educational centres to present a sophis- and Fire, the film acts to unravel his memories ticated intellectual understanding of ’s using archival photographs and Shammout’s attempt to destroy Palestinian identity and the own paintings to tell the story of Palestinian dis- resistance to it. It has not been screened since possession and resistance to it. By simply using its premier at Leipzig in 1983. a montage of visuals and sounds and avoiding narration, Shammout adopts a style that ena- bles the film to communicate across language boundaries, creating a film that offered a non- verbal, affective narrative of the Palestinian cause. The film was screened at a variety of fes- tivals in the former Soviet Union and at the In- ternational Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Week for Cinema and Television in 1973.

© Jawhareih family Jawhareih ©

He who steals the land does not Surprise us by stealing a library. He who kills innocent civilians Screening Tour November 2018 Star and Shadow Cinema, Newcastle Does not surprise by killing paintings December 2018 Glasgow Human Rights Film Festival May 2018 Cine Paris (pre-screening)

June 2018 Sheffield Hallam University, World Premier Mahmoud Darwish (Palestinian identity) October 2018 Arabisches Film Festival, Tubigen To screen this programme or for more information on the project please contact Dr A Ramamurthy, October 2018 Palestine Cinema Days, Ramallah Sheffield Hallam University email: October 2018 Boston Palestine Film Festival, [email protected] November 2018 London Palestine Film Festival PROGRAMME NOTES Zahrat Al-Madain (The Flower of all Cities ) 1969 Introduction dir Ali Siam (7mins) Cinematography: Hani Jawharieh Restoration Director: Azza El Hassan

Produced as part of a cinematic magazine, The In 1982 The Palestine Film Unit archive was de- Flower of all Cities provides a rare example of stroyed and its contents stolen during the Israeli the work of Palestinian photographer and cine- invasion of Beirut. It is now known that the Israeli matographer, Hani Jawharieh (1939 – 1976). Us- military seized it. Access is controlled by the mili- ing the sound track, ‘The Flower of all Cities’, a tary and denied to . famous song by Fairouz, the film presents a har- monious picture of Palestinian civil life that is As part of the Creative Interruptions pro- disturbed by the Israeli army’s occupation of the ject which explores artistic expressions of disen- city following the 1967 war with Israel. During franchised communities that challenge power, this period, Jawharieh worked with the Jordani- researchers at Sheffield Hallam University have an Ministry of Culture as well as the Palestine The Urgent Call of Palestine 1973 participated in the work of digitising and restoring Film Unit. It is significant that when Jawharieh dir Ismail Shammout (5 mins) Palestinian films from the 1970s and the early left in 1975 he chose to take this film with Restoration Director: Bashar Shammout 1980s. Cultural genocide has ‘a direct impact on him indicating his satisfaction with the piece. [a] people’s capacity to stay alive’ (Wolfe 2006). Ismail Shammout, director of the Cultural Arts The restoration of five films marks an important Section of the PLO, while primarily known for his retrieval of Palestinian revolutionary cinema. We paintings also worked with the organisation’s therefore view this recovery as an ‘interruptive’ Film Unit in the 1970s, to produce 5 short films. act. The Urgent Call presents Zainab Shaath, an Egyptian-Palestinian musician singing the song, We hope that this project supports the wider en- ‘The Urgent Call’, which the singer composed deavour to restore Palestinian cultural memory in These five films all emphasise the production of from a poem written by an Indian friend, Lalitha the face of Israel’s systematic destruction of Pal- culture. Zaharat Al Madain highlights the symbol- Punjabi. The song, influenced by the musical estinian cultural artefacts since 1948. In terms of ic role of the city of Jerusalem, Palestine In the style of Joan Baez, became famous across the Palestinian cinema, it has been left to individual Eye pays homage to the filmmaker Hani Jawha- Arab world. The film entwines us emotionally artists and filmmakers to retrieve and restore reih, Ismail Shammout’s films use music and before sharply cutting to the words of Kamal such films from scatted locations across the painting to narrate history and the aims of the Palestine in the Eye (Filastin fi -al Ayn) 1976 Nasser whose agitated style of speech contrasts world. The films we have restored were found in liberation movement, and finally Palestinian Iden- with the song. This emphasises the sharp film dir PLO Film Unit/Mustafa Abu Ali (28mins) private collections, held by filmmakers families, tity highlights the intellectual ideas that influ- cut that delivers the most urgent call. His words Restoration Director: Azza El Hassan treasured belongings that have been inaccessible enced the PLO’s Arts and Culture Unit and gives remain strikingly relevant today. to wider society. Filmmaker Azza El Hassan found witness to the diversity of its cultural productions two films relating to Hani Jawharieh in his family in the face of settler colonialism. Palestine in the Eye documents the loss of Hani home. Ismail Shammout’s family had located two Jawharieh for the PLO Media Unit. Through the of his films amongst his personal materials. The collection also highlights the range of ways use of multiple forms of speech and silence the Filmmaker Kassem Hawal had kept a copy of Pal- in which films were produced during this period: film creates ‘an open text that can be read as a estinian Identity. in collaboration with public funded broadcasters straightforward tribute to a militant friend or as a in the Arab region; independently through the more complex representation… of revolutionary We aim to return these films to Palestinian ar- Palestine Film Unit; as well as in collaboration belonging’ (Yaqub 2018). Although the film has chives as well as to share them with an interna- with progressive filmmakers in the Arab world to later been attributed to Mustafa Abu Ali, the film tional public. We hope by doing so to enable a cement an alternative Arab Cinema in which the unit’s method of work was to describe everyone deeper understanding of Palestinian cinema histo- cause of Palestine was embedded at its heart. as a collective of ‘workers’ and we see this in the ry and visuality including its revolutionary era. film titles, which lists the names of all who partici- pated as a non-hierarchical collective. Through its The collection works together to enhance our un- © Anandi Ramamurthy 2018 reflection on Jawharieh we are offered an under- derstanding of the ways in which the filmmakers Sheffield Hallam University of the period produced a cinema in which the standing of the workings of the Palestine Film preservation and development of culture and so- Unit and its international connections. cial identity was at the heart of the movement.