FEATURE : WORLD CINEMA - PALESTINE
LONDON PALESTINE FILM FESTIVAL 2006
Nowin it's second year at the Barbican Centre, the London Palestine Film Festival opened last week, introduced by award-winning Egyptian novelist and cultural critic, Ahdaf Soueif.
The festival opened with the premiere of a startling, and yet somewhat disturbing, German-Lebanese documentary, introduced by Director Monica Bergman. Massaker, a psycho-political study of six perpetrators who participated in the massacre in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, during the Lebanese war in 1982, both on orders and on their own personal initiative. The tragic events deeply shook the public throughout the world, but today has been almost forgotten. The documentary attempts to explore what drove the people to such excesses of brutality, and how the perpetrators are able to live on through a series of interviews with six of the killers.
The festival programme features more than 30 narrative, art, documentary and experimental works screened over two weeks; some 9 guest artists will be in attendance for question and answer or panel discussions, and a series of thematic double-bill sessions will draw attention to central political, atrtistic and historic questions, treating themes such as Palestine in the visual archive, women and resistance, refugees and identity, and Palestinians in Israel. This is also a chance to see unusual, lost or previousl banned work not generally available, as well as new work premiering in the UK.
For full details please visit www.palestinefilm.org
Palestine on Film
The Palestinian film industry has been emerging slowly from its cocoon for many years. Overshadowed by pan-Arab filmmaking and dominated by the prolific Egyptian film industry, it has laid dormant for many years, producing a handful of political and cultural documentaries. However, the past 15 years has seen a new breed of Palestinian filmmaker emerge; one who is giving a personal analysis of political struggle in a variety of experimental and highly expressive ways.
Palestinian film is steeped in a history of the political documentary, and this influenced its output for many years. Due to the instability in the region the only people with resources to make films were politically motivated organisations whose purpose was to promote the idea of Palestinian freedom and a nation state. This began to change as Palestinian filmmakers became more confident with the idea of experimenting with fiction, and began using metaphor instead of straight documentary to fuse restaged drama with stylistic interpretation for a quasi-fictional retelling of real situations.
Whilst western audiences will be mostly familiar with the recent work of directors like Elia Sulieman (Divine Intervention, 2002), Rachid Masharawi (Waiting, 2005) and Tawfik Abu Wael (Thirst, 2005), filmmaking in the Palestinian territories can be traced back to the early part of the 20 th century. These were mainly propagandist films made by people like the Lumi è re brothers and Thomas Edison as travelogue documentaries for western consumption. They were generally condescending and portrayed Arabs in an unfavourable light. Silent film had barely taken off in the Arab world by the time talkies arrived in the West in the thirties, and production mainly came out of Egypt. In the 1930s and 40s the region produced mainly fund-raising films glorifying the achievements of Zionist settlers in Palestine . Palestinians had to be content with their only representation on film coming from Movietone newsreels which portrayed them as either peasant nomads or terrorists. By the Second World War things had got worse and Hollywood was depicting Palestine as in league with the Nazis. Hollywood films like Sword in the Desert (1949), The Juggler (1953), Exodus (1960) and Victory on Entebbe and Raid on Entebbe (both 1976) continued to perpetuate heroic Israeli and evil Arab stereotypes.
It wasn't until the late 1960s that Palestinian-made films began to come into their own. Prior to this about 100 or so documentaries had been produced in other Arab countries ( Syria , Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria and Tunisia) dealing with the issue of occupation and Palestine in general, but it wasn't until 1968 that Palestinians began to make their own films in the territories. The first film unit was set up by the PLO (after the Six Day War) and was committed to making documentaries about national liberation; their first production was by Mustafa Abu 'Ali and entitled La Li-l-Hall al-Silmi (No Peaceful Solution!), followed by Bi-l Rawh Wal-Damn (By Blood and Soul) three years later. Only a handful more were produced until Jordanian authorities forced the unit to move to Beirut .
Prevented from returning to their homeland, financed by political organisations and actively involved in Palestinian liberation, these filmmakers concentrated on making documentaries concerned with conditions in refugee camps, Israeli abuses and liberation through armed struggle. This became Palestine 's main film output between 1973 and 1977, in addition to documentaries made about traditional Palestinian arts and artists. In 1982 the local film industry received a devastating blow when the Israeli invasion of Beirut disrupted filming and a large part of the national film archive disappeared.
Until 1987 the Palestinian Diaspora had produced around 52 films. This was to change with the Intifada uprising of the same year when filmmaking shifted to Gaza, the West Bank and Israel . Michel Khalifi was the first internationally recognised Palestinian film director with his film 'Urs al-Jalil (Wedding in Galilee, 1987) which paved the way for the likes of the new generation of directors such as Sulieman and Masharawi. Hanna Elias and Hany Abu-Assad would then follow in Masharawi's footsteps with their own features and documentaries about life in the refugee camps, experimenting with humour to communicate difficult themes of hardship and struggle.
These filmmakers moved the genre away from a clear-cut political agenda to one of individual and localised experience. Whilst pre-1980s films had dealt very well with the call for armed resistance, they had largely ignored other social issues of gender, class and the relationships between the old and young. This had become a cinema that dealt exclusively with the themes of occupation, invasion and resistance that dominated all ideas of self-representation. Retaliating against Israel and how they were perceived by the west had become the benchmark against which Palestinians defined themselves. A new breed of filmmakers were to expand on this and look more closely at the discourse surrounding misrepresentation by outsiders to offer a personal interpretation of life as a refugee.
Women directors were the first to challenge the previously male-dominated films about nationalism to show what life was like for Palestinian women. These included Norma Morcos' L'espoir voile (Veiled Hope, 1994), May Masri's 1995 portrait of politician Hanan 'Ashrawi and her film Layla and the Wolves . More personalised and observational accounts were to follow with films like Suileiman and Jayce Salloum's experimental video Muqadimma Li-Nihayat Jidal (Introduction to the End of an Argument, 1990) which mixes scenes of daily life under occupation with scenes from Hollywood movies that depict Arabs as criminals or madmen. Sulieman then followed this with Takrim Bi-l-Qatl (Homage by Assassination, 1992) about a Palestinian immigrant living in the US during the Gulf War who tries to work out what is happening in the middle-east through contradictory news reports.
Also using a fictional story and character to communicate wider political issues, Hany Abu-Assad's Al Qods Fee Yom Akhar (Rana's Wedding, 2004) concerns a Palestinian woman searching for her boyfriend in occupied Jerusalem to flee an arranged marriage, and is very different from his more collective national representation Ford Transit (2002) about a Palestinian taxi driver detouring between checkpoints and the views (most real, some staged) on occupation from his passengers. Tawfik Abu Wael's short Diary of a Male Whore (2001) is just that, and Masharawi's Ticket to Jerusalem (2002) looked at a cinema projectionist's travels between refugee camps showing films to children. Bringing the personal to the fore is most evident in Wael's latest film Atash (Thirst), and notably one of the first Palestinian-Israeli film collaborations, whose publicity states that it: "deliberately rejects taking advantage of the current political conflict, but instead allows it to dwell in the background".
Some may accuse Atash of courting Western audiences by avoiding controversy and not being overtly political. The fact that nationalism is becoming a backdrop to Palestinian filmmaking rather than its ra î son d' é tre is not to say that the new generation of filmmakers aren't interested in politics. They are using fictional characters to give a personalised account of what the documentary had been doing more literally. This injection of artistic licence and cinematic interpretation is opening Palestinian film to a wider audience, as well as the international film circuit and award ceremonies.
Audience reaction is due to be tested to the full with the recent release of Hany Abu-Assad's latest film Paradise Now about two childhood friends who decide to volunteer as suicide bombers (and like Atash is a co-project between Palestinians and Israelis). Filming in the West Bank town of Nablus, a centre of Palestinian militancy and Israeli insurgence, Abu-Assad and his crew were regularly interrupted by gun battles, missile attacks and a kidnap. Abu-Assad is using the film to explore the motivations behind ordinary people carrying out such violent acts. In a hark back to the days of the political documentary, he was told by a Palestinian faction that they didn't like the way he was humanising their heroes and making them out to be regular people with doubts (as opposed to a one-dimensional ultra-warrior type). Ironically the Israelis were also unhappy with the idea of audiences seeing an intimate portrait of a suicide bomber. For Abu-Assad the point was to take the situation of the suicide bomber and tell it as a story in a way that audiences all over the world can relate to; the personal account powerfully providing the metaphor for the backdrop of political struggle. Paradise Now has also achieved something denied its fellow Palestine film, Divine Intervention, some years ago " it has been accepted as the Palestinian nomination for foreign-language film for next year's Oscars.
Whilst digital technology has helped Palestinian filmmakers enormously, equipment, facilities and expertise is hard to find in the territories. For those filmmakers who don't want to use video it is necessary to send film abroad for post-production, mainly to Europe . Since the 1980s finance and audience have shifted away from the old traditional sources of political organisations to the West, and to TV channels like the BBC and Germany 's ZDF (who have supported Masharawi and Sulieman amongst others). Audience is also a complicated area; conceived in exile Palestinian film has never really developed a native audience. Most theatres in the occupied territories closed down due to constant curfews and there has never been a commercial distribution system. Palestinian films are now mostly screened in the West or at film festivals, and hardly seen by Arab or Palestinian audiences. Palestine has only had its own TV channel since the 1990s, and the first Arab women's film festival wasn't held until 1994.
Palestinians also have to deal with a whole set of obstacles pertinent to their environment, and are issues that crop up in most of their films. The random moving or closing of borders and checkpoints; film and equipment being confiscated; restriction of personal movement between areas in the territories according to type of ID; filming in a war zone where bombs and sniper fire are always a threat; sourcing finance and equipment (cameras, film and people to operate them) that is not available locally; finding an outlet for your film when all local cinemas have been closed down.
Compelled by history and circumstance to tell its story of war with Israel and life under occupation, Palestinian cinema has struggled to reach a wider audience and free itself from the narrow discursive limits set upon it. Whilst still very much tied to political conflict as its backdrop, it is now beginning to build on this to find a more poetic voice amongst broader issues of Palestinian reality.
6 Degrees Film was fortunate enough to hold a discussion with a group of Palestinian filmmakers (visiting Europe to see their films shown at Ireland 's Kerry Film Festival) on what they think of the Palestinian film industry and what it's like filming in the occupied territories.
Abdel Salam Shehadeh is a filmmaker and cameraman from Rafah in Gaza , making his own films and documentaries as well as working for international news crews. His films include Rainbow, The Shadow and Debris.
Annemarie Jacir was born in Saudi Arabia and now works as a filmmaker in the Ramallah, Palestine. Her most recent short film like twenty impossibles premiered in Cannes and she is currently working on her first feature Salt of this Sea.
Enas Muthaffar was born in Jerusalem, she is currently doing an MA in feature film at Goldsmiths College and is writing her first feature screenplay after completing a short film East to West.
Zeina Durra is a New York film school graduate and was awarded the Warner Bros Pictures Film Production Award for her thesis film The Seventh Dog, which follows the themes of her previous short films to combine comedy and extravagance with politics.
Is it possible for Palestinians to make a film without referencing politics?
Enas: it's always possible to do films about different things, about personal stories. Like in my film it was not only about Palestine it was about a home, and you could do that film in Ireland or South Africa , any other part of the world. There are of course other films like Thirst, which is also about a place, it's not really Palestine . I guess for most of us as film directors it's the reality that I think rules our feelings and our direction.
Annemarie: I think what Palestinians are making are films about are their experiences and that's what people do everywhere - I don't think it's specific to Palestinians. French people make films about French experience, every French movie that is set in France is about being French ¦ It's very natural to make a film about your experiences, and if you are under occupation then naturally that would come into it, if you are under surveillance in New York that would come into it, that's the situation of your life.
Zeina: It's just the context of where they're set, the stories, like you have universal stories which are often set in political backgrounds whether it's in post 9/11 New York or Paris ¦ I think just by nature of who I am and my identity I'll always make films which have some kind of political comment ¦ I feel that's something that I think filmmakers who come from our part of the world can't help but escape, there will always be some sort of social element.
Annemarie: It's a real privilege also to be able to make a film about whatever you want. I don't think most Palestinians have that privilege. I think it's a privilege to be able to escape and be free and not have to do a racehorse movie ¦ As a Palestinian everything I approach comes from the position of someone who believes in human equality and liberation, everything I approach no matter what it is comes from that spot, and also from being an underdog and knowing that there's always another side and there's always a voice that's being crushed somewhere.
Abdel: I think that we have to focus on our people, our suffering, our land, this is something which we lose, we lose the land, we lose a lot of things and we have to show that we are under occupation, I think that's very important, and to show that we are refugees and we are looking for our independent state.
Enas: You do a story, it's not about Palestinian liberation, but you write and you imagine something so that your characters and the story you want to tell belong to a place and that place is Palestine with certain circumstances, so if we don't show that at least in the background then we will lose our credibility 'cos the place is still our place. It has to come in the background of the story because it's part of the place itself.
Zeina: I think it's very important for me anyway to work with some actors who have a political conscience, at least my lead actors have to have some understanding of the world because it's very important for me when I work with them, not everyone but just those people who are carrying the weight of the film, which is very difficult to find.
What is it like making films in Palestine ?
Annemarie: Everything has become criminalised in Palestine : moving from one Palestinian city to another to visit your aunt is criminalised, you need a permit for that, you need permission to do this. I think Palestinians are the most creative people on earth for what they have to deal with, I mean forget about film " everything has to be done in a creative way. To live your life you have to get around that and to think about a new way to approach everything you do, so as artists that also effects everything we do. In my film [ like twenty impossibles ] everybody that I cast had to have a certain identity card that was either a foreign passport or an Israeli identity card because my film was in several different locations and around Jerusalem . In order to have the privilege to move you cannot have a West Bank identity card nor a Gaza identity card so everybody had to be chosen according to their IDs rather than their experience. We are being culturally silenced which has a big effect too, I've been stopped numerous times and I've had cameras confiscated, I've had my laptop confiscated, I've had pictures erased, video erased. [ like twenty impossibles ] was confiscated from me at the airport. Even as an artist you get the feeling that everything you're doing is illegal, is criminalised, even though it's not, it's very mundane activities.
Abdel: It's completely connected to the Palestinian issue. It's very difficult to get equipment " you have to find a foreigner friend or a foreign company to support you to bring a camera. Sometimes you need a lot of things, light, cassettes. Checkpoints aren't always open. You can't get things easily. They confiscated a DV camera just because we were sitting in a checkpoint. The soldiers came and took the camera and they arrested one of the cameramen and after that they denied that he had a camera. It's always a problem that we're facing.
Enas: With [digital] video it's now much better than before, we've got Ramallah and a few production companies in Jerusalem , I don't know about Gaza I've never been there, but there are many production companies with good equipment and good editing suites. The main problem is with film, whether it's 35 or 16mm it needs certain specifications, you need a certain camera, a certain crew with certain skills so that's why many Palestinian productions like Divine Intervention and Paradise Now have foreigners working among the crew. The equipment is either from Tel Aviv or the country of co-production like France or Germany . It's sad but at the same time I think we are taking it step by step. In time the more films we make the more crew members we'll have and the more that production companies will consider actually buying this equipment to serve the local filmmakers, but at the moment we're kind of dependent on Israeli/European crew or equipment.
Where do your films get shown?
Annemarie: both Enas and I work with Dreams of a Nation, we had a festival in Palestine . The original idea was to show Palestinian films to Palestinians because we never get to see our own films. The main ones like Divine Intervention, yes, but not other ones. Nobody could get to Jerusalem so screenings ended up being in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and in Gaza. The films were coming to people since they can't get to Jerusalem " it's easier to get to Scotland now than to Jerusalem . There were movie theatres in Palestine . When my parents lived in Bethlehem there were three movie theatres there, and Jerusalem had four. Those were all shut down after '67 but now in the last decade there's been a resurgence, there's a theatre in Ramallah and there's the Ramallah film festival which started last year.
Enas: We do screen films but when we go to the theatre we see only a few people among the audience, it's very hard to get the people out of their homes because they're not used to going to the cinema. I remember me and my friends had to personally invite people and say you have to come, then it was full. But usually when you just put an ad in the newspaper, or there is a small magazine called This Week in Palestine that covers all the cultural events in Palestine for a week, but nobody really cares, they say I'll get it on a DVD. But now I think it's getting much better because people are more aware that we have cinema that's going to Cannes , to Berlin , that we've got filmmakers in the States, that we've got a unique cinema. I think it will change with time.
Annemarie: There's a lot of Arab film festivals actually and there's been a lot of Palestinian film festivals in the past few years. There's an Arab film festival in San Francisco and Chicago has a Palestinian film festival. Dreams of a Nation was the first New York Palestinian film festival, but in Texas there's a Palestinian film festival, in London there's a Palestinian film festival. We're working now with Copenhagen and next year they're going to do a Palestinian film festival " there are a lot ¦ Even after Divine Intervention won the jury prize in Cannes no American distributor touched the film, nobody wanted it, they were afraid of it and this tiny distribution company in New York picked it up " two young guys with very little experience " Avatar Films " no one had heard of them, everybody else was afraid of it. I know that in New York certain theatres refused to show the film.
How do you finance your films?
Annemarie: We have to beg Europeans for money! The Arab world does not support cinema because of many reasons, one of them being the political situation in Palestine , there hasn't been money put aside for the arts, there are more important issues " health issues, emergency medical issues, these sort of things and there aren't really funds for artists. I have to get my money from grants, from organisations, from co-productions, so far that's the way it's been.
Zeina: a few wealthy individuals will give you money, you just have to know who, there are a lot of wealthy individuals all over the middle east who will give you money for your films if they believe you have a point. All my money came from private individuals except for when my school acknowledged the film and gave me a tiny scholarship, a Warner Brothers Award which was $3000. It's mainly private, like foundations or individuals. I didn't get anything from the Palestinian Diaspora ¦ Saudi and the Gulf is where I get most of my money, especially Dubai.
Enas: Like Annemarie said it's very hard to get funding, most of the filmmakers that really succeed in doing a film go outside and they bring money to Palestine but it's really hard for a Palestinian filmmaker inside Palestine to get money to do films. I finished studying five years ago and went back and I'm still struggling now. You have to go outside and bring the money inside.
Is it easy to become a filmmaker in Palestine ?
Annemarie: I have a friend in Ramallah who is amazing, a very talented filmmaker and animator who has received scholarships to study animation. He was accepted to an animation school in Australia , everything was paid for, everything was set up and he was denied a visa, so he was stuck in Ramallah and has been for several years, he's not allowed out. Then he was accepted to a school in Canada " same thing, full scholarship he was ready to go and again his visa was rejected.
Enas: Many can't make it to film school " we don't have a film school in Palestine, there's one in Israel but not in Palestine.
Abdel: Some universities are doing courses in scriptwriting or shooting or editing, they bring in experience from outside the country and give small courses.
Enas: A documentary narrating a certain story doesn't need a huge budget and you can do this story and tell it in your way with a camera and editing suite. But if you want to do a fiction, a drama, then that is kind of different production that needs a certain budget which is hard to get so it's very difficult from that angle but not as difficult when you're doing a very small short documentary or experimental or video art or installation, it depends really on the kind of production you want to do.
Annemarie: even if it's cheap to make films there's another issue too, Abdel have you ever been shot at when you were filming as a cameraman?
Abdel: Yeah! A lot of times! Can I show you? I was making a test you know, and there were snipers in the street and they started shooting and a bullet went into my leg. That's a real issue. It's really serious, it's a risk.
Abdel Salam Shehadeh is a filmmaker and cameraman from Rafah in Gaza , making his own films and documentaries as well as working for international news crews. His films include Rainbow, The Shadow and Debris.
Annemarie Jacir was born in Saudi Arabia and now works as a filmmaker in the Ramallah, Palestine. Her most recent short film like twenty impossibles premiered in Cannes and she is currently working on her first feature Salt of this Sea.
Enas Muthaffar was born in Jerusalem, she is currently doing an MA in feature film at Goldsmiths College and is writing her first feature screenplay after completing a short film East to West.
Zeina Durra is a New York film school graduate and was awarded the Warner Bros Pictures Film Production Award for her thesis film The Seventh Dog, which follows the themes of her previous short films to combine comedy and extravagance with politics.
Is it possible for Palestinians to make a film without referencing politics?
Enas: it's always possible to do films about different things, about personal stories. Like in my film it was not only about Palestine it was about a home, and you could do that film in Ireland or South Africa , any other part of the world. There are of course other films like Thirst, which is also about a place, it's not really Palestine . I guess for most of us as film directors it's the reality that I think rules our feelings and our direction.
Annemarie: I think what Palestinians are making are films about are their experiences and that's what people do everywhere - I don't think it's specific to Palestinians. French people make films about French experience, every French movie that is set in France is about being French ¦ It's very natural to make a film about your experiences, and if you are under occupation then naturally that would come into it, if you are under surveillance in New York that would come into it, that's the situation of your life.
Zeina: It's just the context of where they're set, the stories, like you have universal stories which are often set in political backgrounds whether it's in post 9/11 New York or Paris ¦ I think just by nature of who I am and my identity I'll always make films which have some kind of political comment ¦ I feel that's something that I think filmmakers who come from our part of the world can't help but escape, there will always be some sort of social element.
Annemarie: It's a real privilege also to be able to make a film about whatever you want. I don't think most Palestinians have that privilege. I think it's a privilege to be able to escape and be free and not have to do a racehorse movie ¦ As a Palestinian everything I approach comes from the position of someone who believes in human equality and liberation, everything I approach no matter what it is comes from that spot, and also from being an underdog and knowing that there's always another side and there's always a voice that's being crushed somewhere.
Abdel: I think that we have to focus on our people, our suffering, our land, this is something which we lose, we lose the land, we lose a lot of things and we have to show that we are under occupation, I think that's very important, and to show that we are refugees and we are looking for our independent state.
Enas: You do a story, it's not about Palestinian liberation, but you write and you imagine something so that your characters and the story you want to tell belong to a place and that place is Palestine with certain circumstances, so if we don't show that at least in the background then we will lose our credibility 'cos the place is still our place. It has to come in the background of the story because it's part of the place itself.
Zeina: I think it's very important for me anyway to work with some actors who have a political conscience, at least my lead actors have to have some understanding of the world because it's very important for me when I work with them, not everyone but just those people who are carrying the weight of the film, which is very difficult to find.
What is it like making films in Palestine ?
Annemarie: Everything has become criminalised in Palestine : moving from one Palestinian city to another to visit your aunt is criminalised, you need a permit for that, you need permission to do this. I think Palestinians are the most creative people on earth for what they have to deal with, I mean forget about film " everything has to be done in a creative way. To live your life you have to get around that and to think about a new way to approach everything you do, so as artists that also effects everything we do. In my film [ like twenty impossibles ] everybody that I cast had to have a certain identity card that was either a foreign passport or an Israeli identity card because my film was in several different locations and around Jerusalem . In order to have the privilege to move you cannot have a West Bank identity card nor a Gaza identity card so everybody had to be chosen according to their IDs rather than their experience. We are being culturally silenced which has a big effect too, I've been stopped numerous times and I've had cameras confiscated, I've had my laptop confiscated, I've had pictures erased, video erased. [ like twenty impossibles ] was confiscated from me at the airport. Even as an artist you get the feeling that everything you're doing is illegal, is criminalised, even though it's not, it's very mundane activities.
Abdel: It's completely connected to the Palestinian issue. It's very difficult to get equipment " you have to find a foreigner friend or a foreign company to support you to bring a camera. Sometimes you need a lot of things, light, cassettes. Checkpoints aren't always open. You can't get things easily. They confiscated a DV camera just because we were sitting in a checkpoint. The soldiers came and took the camera and they arrested one of the cameramen and after that they denied that he had a camera. It's always a problem that we're facing.
Enas: With [digital] video it's now much better than before, we've got Ramallah and a few production companies in Jerusalem , I don't know about Gaza I've never been there, but there are many production companies with good equipment and good editing suites. The main problem is with film, whether it's 35 or 16mm it needs certain specifications, you need a certain camera, a certain crew with certain skills so that's why many Palestinian productions like Divine Intervention and Paradise Now have foreigners working among the crew. The equipment is either from Tel Aviv or the country of co-production like France or Germany . It's sad but at the same time I think we are taking it step by step. In time the more films we make the more crew members we'll have and the more that production companies will consider actually buying this equipment to serve the local filmmakers, but at the moment we're kind of dependent on Israeli/European crew or equipment.
Where do your films get shown?
Annemarie: both Enas and I work with Dreams of a Nation, we had a festival in Palestine . The original idea was to show Palestinian films to Palestinians because we never get to see our own films. The main ones like Divine Intervention, yes, but not other ones. Nobody could get to Jerusalem so screenings ended up being in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and in Gaza. The films were coming to people since they can't get to Jerusalem " it's easier to get to Scotland now than to Jerusalem . There were movie theatres in Palestine . When my parents lived in Bethlehem there were three movie theatres there, and Jerusalem had four. Those were all shut down after '67 but now in the last decade there's been a resurgence, there's a theatre in Ramallah and there's the Ramallah film festival which started last year.
Enas: We do screen films but when we go to the theatre we see only a few people among the audience, it's very hard to get the people out of their homes because they're not used to going to the cinema. I remember me and my friends had to personally invite people and say you have to come, then it was full. But usually when you just put an ad in the newspaper, or there is a small magazine called This Week in Palestine that covers all the cultural events in Palestine for a week, but nobody really cares, they say I'll get it on a DVD. But now I think it's getting much better because people are more aware that we have cinema that's going to Cannes , to Berlin , that we've got filmmakers in the States, that we've got a unique cinema. I think it will change with time.
Annemarie: There's a lot of Arab film festivals actually and there's been a lot of Palestinian film festivals in the past few years. There's an Arab film festival in San Francisco and Chicago has a Palestinian film festival. Dreams of a Nation was the first New York Palestinian film festival, but in Texas there's a Palestinian film festival, in London there's a Palestinian film festival. We're working now with Copenhagen and next year they're going to do a Palestinian film festival " there are a lot ¦ Even after Divine Intervention won the jury prize in Cannes no American distributor touched the film, nobody wanted it, they were afraid of it and this tiny distribution company in New York picked it up " two young guys with very little experience " Avatar Films " no one had heard of them, everybody else was afraid of it. I know that in New York certain theatres refused to show the film.
How do you finance your films?
Annemarie: We have to beg Europeans for money! The Arab world does not support cinema because of many reasons, one of them being the political situation in Palestine , there hasn't been money put aside for the arts, there are more important issues " health issues, emergency medical issues, these sort of things and there aren't really funds for artists. I have to get my money from grants, from organisations, from co-productions, so far that's the way it's been.
Zeina: a few wealthy individuals will give you money, you just have to know who, there are a lot of wealthy individuals all over the middle east who will give you money for your films if they believe you have a point. All my money came from private individuals except for when my school acknowledged the film and gave me a tiny scholarship, a Warner Brothers Award which was $3000. It's mainly private, like foundations or individuals. I didn't get anything from the Palestinian Diaspora ¦ Saudi and the Gulf is where I get most of my money, especially Dubai.
Enas: Like Annemarie said it's very hard to get funding, most of the filmmakers that really succeed in doing a film go outside and they bring money to Palestine but it's really hard for a Palestinian filmmaker inside Palestine to get money to do films. I finished studying five years ago and went back and I'm still struggling now. You have to go outside and bring the money inside.
Is it easy to become a filmmaker in Palestine ?
Annemarie: I have a friend in Ramallah who is amazing, a very talented filmmaker and animator who has received scholarships to study animation. He was accepted to an animation school in Australia , everything was paid for, everything was set up and he was denied a visa, so he was stuck in Ramallah and has been for several years, he's not allowed out. Then he was accepted to a school in Canada " same thing, full scholarship he was ready to go and again his visa was rejected.
Enas: Many can't make it to film school " we don't have a film school in Palestine, there's one in Israel but not in Palestine.
Abdel: Some universities are doing courses in scriptwriting or shooting or editing, they bring in experience from outside the country and give small courses.
Enas: A documentary narrating a certain story doesn't need a huge budget and you can do this story and tell it in your way with a camera and editing suite. But if you want to do a fiction, a drama, then that is kind of different production that needs a certain budget which is hard to get so it's very difficult from that angle but not as difficult when you're doing a very small short documentary or experimental or video art or installation, it depends really on the kind of production you want to do.
Annemarie: even if it's cheap to make films there's another issue too, Abdel have you ever been shot at when you were filming as a cameraman?
Abdel: Yeah! A lot of times! Can I show you? I was making a test you know, and there were snipers in the street and they started shooting and a bullet went into my leg. That's a real issue. It's really serious, it's a risk.
Abdel Salam Shehadeh is a filmmaker and cameraman from Rafah in Gaza , making his own films and documentaries as well as working for international news crews. His films include Rainbow, The Shadow and Debris.
Annemarie Jacir was born in Saudi Arabia and now works as a filmmaker in the Ramallah, Palestine. Her most recent short film like twenty impossibles premiered in Cannes and she is currently working on her first feature Salt of this Sea.
Enas Muthaffar was born in Jerusalem, she is currently doing an MA in feature film at Goldsmiths College and is writing her first feature screenplay after completing a short film East to West.
Zeina Durra is a New York film school graduate and was awarded the Warner Bros Pictures Film Production Award for her thesis film The Seventh Dog, which follows the themes of her previous short films to combine comedy and extravagance with politics.
Is it possible for Palestinians to make a film without referencing politics?
Enas: it's always possible to do films about different things, about personal stories. Like in my film it was not only about Palestine it was about a home, and you could do that film in Ireland or South Africa , any other part of the world. There are of course other films like Thirst, which is also about a place, it's not really Palestine . I guess for most of us as film directors it's the reality that I think rules our feelings and our direction.
Annemarie: I think what Palestinians are making are films about are their experiences and that's what people do everywhere - I don't think it's specific to Palestinians. French people make films about French experience, every French movie that is set in France is about being French ¦ It's very natural to make a film about your experiences, and if you are under occupation then naturally that would come into it, if you are under surveillance in New York that would come into it, that's the situation of your life.
Zeina: It's just the context of where they're set, the stories, like you have universal stories which are often set in political backgrounds whether it's in post 9/11 New York or Paris ¦ I think just by nature of who I am and my identity I'll always make films which have some kind of political comment ¦ I feel that's something that I think filmmakers who come from our part of the world can't help but escape, there will always be some sort of social element.
Annemarie: It's a real privilege also to be able to make a film about whatever you want. I don't think most Palestinians have that privilege. I think it's a privilege to be able to escape and be free and not have to do a racehorse movie ¦ As a Palestinian everything I approach comes from the position of someone who believes in human equality and liberation, everything I approach no matter what it is comes from that spot, and also from being an underdog and knowing that there's always another side and there's always a voice that's being crushed somewhere.
Abdel: I think that we have to focus on our people, our suffering, our land, this is something which we lose, we lose the land, we lose a lot of things and we have to show that we are under occupation, I think that's very important, and to show that we are refugees and we are looking for our independent state.
Enas: You do a story, it's not about Palestinian liberation, but you write and you imagine something so that your characters and the story you want to tell belong to a place and that place is Palestine with certain circumstances, so if we don't show that at least in the background then we will lose our credibility 'cos the place is still our place. It has to come in the background of the story because it's part of the place itself.
Zeina: I think it's very important for me anyway to work with some actors who have a political conscience, at least my lead actors have to have some understanding of the world because it's very important for me when I work with them, not everyone but just those people who are carrying the weight of the film, which is very difficult to find.
What is it like making films in Palestine ?
Annemarie: Everything has become criminalised in Palestine : moving from one Palestinian city to another to visit your aunt is criminalised, you need a permit for that, you need permission to do this. I think Palestinians are the most creative people on earth for what they have to deal with, I mean forget about film " everything has to be done in a creative way. To live your life you have to get around that and to think about a new way to approach everything you do, so as artists that also effects everything we do. In my film [ like twenty impossibles ] everybody that I cast had to have a certain identity card that was either a foreign passport or an Israeli identity card because my film was in several different locations and around Jerusalem . In order to have the privilege to move you cannot have a West Bank identity card nor a Gaza identity card so everybody had to be chosen according to their IDs rather than their experience. We are being culturally silenced which has a big effect too, I've been stopped numerous times and I've had cameras confiscated, I've had my laptop confiscated, I've had pictures erased, video erased. [ like twenty impossibles ] was confiscated from me at the airport. Even as an artist you get the feeling that everything you're doing is illegal, is criminalised, even though it's not, it's very mundane activities.
Abdel: It's completely connected to the Palestinian issue. It's very difficult to get equipment " you have to find a foreigner friend or a foreign company to support you to bring a camera. Sometimes you need a lot of things, light, cassettes. Checkpoints aren't always open. You can't get things easily. They confiscated a DV camera just because we were sitting in a checkpoint. The soldiers came and took the camera and they arrested one of the cameramen and after that they denied that he had a camera. It's always a problem that we're facing.
Enas: With [digital] video it's now much better than before, we've got Ramallah and a few production companies in Jerusalem , I don't know about Gaza I've never been there, but there are many production companies with good equipment and good editing suites. The main problem is with film, whether it's 35 or 16mm it needs certain specifications, you need a certain camera, a certain crew with certain skills so that's why many Palestinian productions like Divine Intervention and Paradise Now have foreigners working among the crew. The equipment is either from Tel Aviv or the country of co-production like France or Germany . It's sad but at the same time I think we are taking it step by step. In time the more films we make the more crew members we'll have and the more that production companies will consider actually buying this equipment to serve the local filmmakers, but at the moment we're kind of dependent on Israeli/European crew or equipment.
Where do your films get shown?
Annemarie: both Enas and I work with Dreams of a Nation, we had a festival in Palestine . The original idea was to show Palestinian films to Palestinians because we never get to see our own films. The main ones like Divine Intervention, yes, but not other ones. Nobody could get to Jerusalem so screenings ended up being in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and in Gaza. The films were coming to people since they can't get to Jerusalem " it's easier to get to Scotland now than to Jerusalem . There were movie theatres in Palestine . When my parents lived in Bethlehem there were three movie theatres there, and Jerusalem had four. Those were all shut down after '67 but now in the last decade there's been a resurgence, there's a theatre in Ramallah and there's the Ramallah film festival which started last year.
Enas: We do screen films but when we go to the theatre we see only a few people among the audience, it's very hard to get the people out of their homes because they're not used to going to the cinema. I remember me and my friends had to personally invite people and say you have to come, then it was full. But usually when you just put an ad in the newspaper, or there is a small magazine called This Week in Palestine that covers all the cultural events in Palestine for a week, but nobody really cares, they say I'll get it on a DVD. But now I think it's getting much better because people are more aware that we have cinema that's going to Cannes , to Berlin , that we've got filmmakers in the States, that we've got a unique cinema. I think it will change with time.
Annemarie: There's a lot of Arab film festivals actually and there's been a lot of Palestinian film festivals in the past few years. There's an Arab film festival in San Francisco and Chicago has a Palestinian film festival. Dreams of a Nation was the first New York Palestinian film festival, but in Texas there's a Palestinian film festival, in London there's a Palestinian film festival. We're working now with Copenhagen and next year they're going to do a Palestinian film festival " there are a lot ¦ Even after Divine Intervention won the jury prize in Cannes no American distributor touched the film, nobody wanted it, they were afraid of it and this tiny distribution company in New York picked it up " two young guys with very little experience " Avatar Films " no one had heard of them, everybody else was afraid of it. I know that in New York certain theatres refused to show the film.
How do you finance your films?
Annemarie: We have to beg Europeans for money! The Arab world does not support cinema because of many reasons, one of them being the political situation in Palestine , there hasn't been money put aside for the arts, there are more important issues " health issues, emergency medical issues, these sort of things and there aren't really funds for artists. I have to get my money from grants, from organisations, from co-productions, so far that's the way it's been.
Zeina: a few wealthy individuals will give you money, you just have to know who, there are a lot of wealthy individuals all over the middle east who will give you money for your films if they believe you have a point. All my money came from private individuals except for when my school acknowledged the film and gave me a tiny scholarship, a Warner Brothers Award which was $3000. It's mainly private, like foundations or individuals. I didn't get anything from the Palestinian Diaspora ¦ Saudi and the Gulf is where I get most of my money, especially Dubai.
Enas: Like Annemarie said it's very hard to get funding, most of the filmmakers that really succeed in doing a film go outside and they bring money to Palestine but it's really hard for a Palestinian filmmaker inside Palestine to get money to do films. I finished studying five years ago and went back and I'm still struggling now. You have to go outside and bring the money inside.
Is it easy to become a filmmaker in Palestine ?
Annemarie: I have a friend in Ramallah who is amazing, a very talented filmmaker and animator who has received scholarships to study animation. He was accepted to an animation school in Australia , everything was paid for, everything was set up and he was denied a visa, so he was stuck in Ramallah and has been for several years, he's not allowed out. Then he was accepted to a school in Canada " same thing, full scholarship he was ready to go and again his visa was rejected.
Enas: Many can't make it to film school " we don't have a film school in Palestine, there's one in Israel but not in Palestine.
Abdel: Some universities are doing courses in scriptwriting or shooting or editing, they bring in experience from outside the country and give small courses.
Enas: A documentary narrating a certain story doesn't need a huge budget and you can do this story and tell it in your way with a camera and editing suite. But if you want to do a fiction, a drama, then that is kind of different production that needs a certain budget which is hard to get so it's very difficult from that angle but not as difficult when you're doing a very small short documentary or experimental or video art or installation, it depends really on the kind of production you want to do.
Annemarie: even if it's cheap to make films there's another issue too, Abdel have you ever been shot at when you were filming as a cameraman?
Abdel: Yeah! A lot of times! Can I show you? I was making a test you know, and there were snipers in the street and they started shooting and a bullet went into my leg. That's a real issue. It's really serious, it's a risk.
Abdel Salam Shehadeh is a filmmaker and cameraman from Rafah in Gaza , making his own films and documentaries as well as working for international news crews. His films include Rainbow, The Shadow and Debris.
Annemarie Jacir was born in Saudi Arabia and now works as a filmmaker in the Ramallah, Palestine. Her most recent short film like twenty impossibles premiered in Cannes and she is currently working on her first feature Salt of this Sea.
Enas Muthaffar was born in Jerusalem, she is currently doing an MA in feature film at Goldsmiths College and is writing her first feature screenplay after completing a short film East to West.
Zeina Durra is a New York film school graduate and was awarded the Warner Bros Pictures Film Production Award for her thesis film The Seventh Dog, which follows the themes of her previous short films to combine comedy and extravagance with politics.
Is it possible for Palestinians to make a film without referencing politics?
Enas: it's always possible to do films about different things, about personal stories. Like in my film it was not only about Palestine it was about a home, and you could do that film in Ireland or South Africa , any other part of the world. There are of course other films like Thirst, which is also about a place, it's not really Palestine . I guess for most of us as film directors it's the reality that I think rules our feelings and our direction.
Annemarie: I think what Palestinians are making are films about are their experiences and that's what people do everywhere - I don't think it's specific to Palestinians. French people make films about French experience, every French movie that is set in France is about being French ¦ It's very natural to make a film about your experiences, and if you are under occupation then naturally that would come into it, if you are under surveillance in New York that would come into it, that's the situation of your life.
Zeina: It's just the context of where they're set, the stories, like you have universal stories which are often set in political backgrounds whether it's in post 9/11 New York or Paris ¦ I think just by nature of who I am and my identity I'll always make films which have some kind of political comment ¦ I feel that's something that I think filmmakers who come from our part of the world can't help but escape, there will always be some sort of social element.
Annemarie: It's a real privilege also to be able to make a film about whatever you want. I don't think most Palestinians have that privilege. I think it's a privilege to be able to escape and be free and not have to do a racehorse movie ¦ As a Palestinian everything I approach comes from the position of someone who believes in human equality and liberation, everything I approach no matter what it is comes from that spot, and also from being an underdog and knowing that there's always another side and there's always a voice that's being crushed somewhere.
Abdel: I think that we have to focus on our people, our suffering, our land, this is something which we lose, we lose the land, we lose a lot of things and we have to show that we are under occupation, I think that's very important, and to show that we are refugees and we are looking for our independent state.
Enas: You do a story, it's not about Palestinian liberation, but you write and you imagine something so that your characters and the story you want to tell belong to a place and that place is Palestine with certain circumstances, so if we don't show that at least in the background then we will lose our credibility 'cos the place is still our place. It has to come in the background of the story because it's part of the place itself.
Zeina: I think it's very important for me anyway to work with some actors who have a political conscience, at least my lead actors have to have some understanding of the world because it's very important for me when I work with them, not everyone but just those people who are carrying the weight of the film, which is very difficult to find.
What is it like making films in Palestine ?
Annemarie: Everything has become criminalised in Palestine : moving from one Palestinian city to another to visit your aunt is criminalised, you need a permit for that, you need permission to do this. I think Palestinians are the most creative people on earth for what they have to deal with, I mean forget about film " everything has to be done in a creative way. To live your life you have to get around that and to think about a new way to approach everything you do, so as artists that also effects everything we do. In my film [ like twenty impossibles ] everybody that I cast had to have a certain identity card that was either a foreign passport or an Israeli identity card because my film was in several different locations and around Jerusalem . In order to have the privilege to move you cannot have a West Bank identity card nor a Gaza identity card so everybody had to be chosen according to their IDs rather than their experience. We are being culturally silenced which has a big effect too, I've been stopped numerous times and I've had cameras confiscated, I've had my laptop confiscated, I've had pictures erased, video erased. [ like twenty impossibles ] was confiscated from me at the airport. Even as an artist you get the feeling that everything you're doing is illegal, is criminalised, even though it's not, it's very mundane activities.
Abdel: It's completely connected to the Palestinian issue. It's very difficult to get equipment " you have to find a foreigner friend or a foreign company to support you to bring a camera. Sometimes you need a lot of things, light, cassettes. Checkpoints aren't always open. You can't get things easily. They confiscated a DV camera just because we were sitting in a checkpoint. The soldiers came and took the camera and they arrested one of the cameramen and after that they denied that he had a camera. It's always a problem that we're facing.
Enas: With [digital] video it's now much better than before, we've got Ramallah and a few production companies in Jerusalem , I don't know about Gaza I've never been there, but there are many production companies with good equipment and good editing suites. The main problem is with film, whether it's 35 or 16mm it needs certain specifications, you need a certain camera, a certain crew with certain skills so that's why many Palestinian productions like Divine Intervention and Paradise Now have foreigners working among the crew. The equipment is either from Tel Aviv or the country of co-production like France or Germany . It's sad but at the same time I think we are taking it step by step. In time the more films we make the more crew members we'll have and the more that production companies will consider actually buying this equipment to serve the local filmmakers, but at the moment we're kind of dependent on Israeli/European crew or equipment.
Where do your films get shown?
Annemarie: both Enas and I work with Dreams of a Nation, we had a festival in Palestine . The original idea was to show Palestinian films to Palestinians because we never get to see our own films. The main ones like Divine Intervention, yes, but not other ones. Nobody could get to Jerusalem so screenings ended up being in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and in Gaza. The films were coming to people since they can't get to Jerusalem " it's easier to get to Scotland now than to Jerusalem . There were movie theatres in Palestine . When my parents lived in Bethlehem there were three movie theatres there, and Jerusalem had four. Those were all shut down after '67 but now in the last decade there's been a resurgence, there's a theatre in Ramallah and there's the Ramallah film festival which started last year.
Enas: We do screen films but when we go to the theatre we see only a few people among the audience, it's very hard to get the people out of their homes because they're not used to going to the cinema. I remember me and my friends had to personally invite people and say you have to come, then it was full. But usually when you just put an ad in the newspaper, or there is a small magazine called This Week in Palestine that covers all the cultural events in Palestine for a week, but nobody really cares, they say I'll get it on a DVD. But now I think it's getting much better because people are more aware that we have cinema that's going to Cannes , to Berlin , that we've got filmmakers in the States, that we've got a unique cinema. I think it will change with time.
Annemarie: There's a lot of Arab film festivals actually and there's been a lot of Palestinian film festivals in the past few years. There's an Arab film festival in San Francisco and Chicago has a Palestinian film festival. Dreams of a Nation was the first New York Palestinian film festival, but in Texas there's a Palestinian film festival, in London there's a Palestinian film festival. We're working now with Copenhagen and next year they're going to do a Palestinian film festival " there are a lot ¦ Even after Divine Intervention won the jury prize in Cannes no American distributor touched the film, nobody wanted it, they were afraid of it and this tiny distribution company in New York picked it up " two young guys with very little experience " Avatar Films " no one had heard of them, everybody else was afraid of it. I know that in New York certain theatres refused to show the film.
How do you finance your films?
Annemarie: We have to beg Europeans for money! The Arab world does not support cinema because of many reasons, one of them being the political situation in Palestine , there hasn't been money put aside for the arts, there are more important issues " health issues, emergency medical issues, these sort of things and there aren't really funds for artists. I have to get my money from grants, from organisations, from co-productions, so far that's the way it's been.
Zeina: a few wealthy individuals will give you money, you just have to know who, there are a lot of wealthy individuals all over the middle east who will give you money for your films if they believe you have a point. All my money came from private individuals except for when my school acknowledged the film and gave me a tiny scholarship, a Warner Brothers Award which was $3000. It's mainly private, like foundations or individuals. I didn't get anything from the Palestinian Diaspora ¦ Saudi and the Gulf is where I get most of my money, especially Dubai.
Enas: Like Annemarie said it's very hard to get funding, most of the filmmakers that really succeed in doing a film go outside and they bring money to Palestine but it's really hard for a Palestinian filmmaker inside Palestine to get money to do films. I finished studying five years ago and went back and I'm still struggling now. You have to go outside and bring the money inside.
Is it easy to become a filmmaker in Palestine ?
Annemarie: I have a friend in Ramallah who is amazing, a very talented filmmaker and animator who has received scholarships to study animation. He was accepted to an animation school in Australia , everything was paid for, everything was set up and he was denied a visa, so he was stuck in Ramallah and has been for several years, he's not allowed out. Then he was accepted to a school in Canada " same thing, full scholarship he was ready to go and again his visa was rejected.
Enas: Many can't make it to film school " we don't have a film school in Palestine, there's one in Israel but not in Palestine.
Abdel: Some universities are doing courses in scriptwriting or shooting or editing, they bring in experience from outside the country and give small courses.
Enas: A documentary narrating a certain story doesn't need a huge budget and you can do this story and tell it in your way with a camera and editing suite. But if you want to do a fiction, a drama, then that is kind of different production that needs a certain budget which is hard to get so it's very difficult from that angle but not as difficult when you're doing a very small short documentary or experimental or video art or installation, it depends really on the kind of production you want to do.
Annemarie: even if it's cheap to make films there's another issue too, Abdel have you ever been shot at when you were filming as a cameraman?
Abdel: Yeah! A lot of times! Can I show you? I was making a test you know, and there were snipers in the street and they started shooting and a bullet went into my leg. That's a real issue. It's really serious, it's a risk.
Abdel Salam Shehadeh is a filmmaker and cameraman from Rafah in Gaza , making his own films and documentaries as well as working for international news crews. His films include Rainbow, The Shadow and Debris.
Annemarie Jacir was born in Saudi Arabia and now works as a filmmaker in the Ramallah, Palestine. Her most recent short film like twenty impossibles premiered in Cannes and she is currently working on her first feature Salt of this Sea.
Enas Muthaffar was born in Jerusalem, she is currently doing an MA in feature film at Goldsmiths College and is writing her first feature screenplay after completing a short film East to West.
Zeina Durra is a New York film school graduate and was awarded the Warner Bros Pictures Film Production Award for her thesis film The Seventh Dog, which follows the themes of her previous short films to combine comedy and extravagance with politics.
Is it possible for Palestinians to make a film without referencing politics?
Enas: it's always possible to do films about different things, about personal stories. Like in my film it was not only about Palestine it was about a home, and you could do that film in Ireland or South Africa , any other part of the world. There are of course other films like Thirst, which is also about a place, it's not really Palestine . I guess for most of us as film directors it's the reality that I think rules our feelings and our direction.
Annemarie: I think what Palestinians are making are films about are their experiences and that's what people do everywhere - I don't think it's specific to Palestinians. French people make films about French experience, every French movie that is set in France is about being French ¦ It's very natural to make a film about your experiences, and if you are under occupation then naturally that would come into it, if you are under surveillance in New York that would come into it, that's the situation of your life.
Zeina: It's just the context of where they're set, the stories, like you have universal stories which are often set in political backgrounds whether it's in post 9/11 New York or Paris ¦ I think just by nature of who I am and my identity I'll always make films which have some kind of political comment ¦ I feel that's something that I think filmmakers who come from our part of the world can't help but escape, there will always be some sort of social element.
Annemarie: It's a real privilege also to be able to make a film about whatever you want. I don't think most Palestinians have that privilege. I think it's a privilege to be able to escape and be free and not have to do a racehorse movie ¦ As a Palestinian everything I approach comes from the position of someone who believes in human equality and liberation, everything I approach no matter what it is comes from that spot, and also from being an underdog and knowing that there's always another side and there's always a voice that's being crushed somewhere.
Abdel: I think that we have to focus on our people, our suffering, our land, this is something which we lose, we lose the land, we lose a lot of things and we have to show that we are under occupation, I think that's very important, and to show that we are refugees and we are looking for our independent state.
Enas: You do a story, it's not about Palestinian liberation, but you write and you imagine something so that your characters and the story you want to tell belong to a place and that place is Palestine with certain circumstances, so if we don't show that at least in the background then we will lose our credibility 'cos the place is still our place. It has to come in the background of the story because it's part of the place itself.
Zeina: I think it's very important for me anyway to work with some actors who have a political conscience, at least my lead actors have to have some understanding of the world because it's very important for me when I work with them, not everyone but just those people who are carrying the weight of the film, which is very difficult to find.
What is it like making films in Palestine ?
Annemarie: Everything has become criminalised in Palestine : moving from one Palestinian city to another to visit your aunt is criminalised, you need a permit for that, you need permission to do this. I think Palestinians are the most creative people on earth for what they have to deal with, I mean forget about film " everything has to be done in a creative way. To live your life you have to get around that and to think about a new way to approach everything you do, so as artists that also effects everything we do. In my film [ like twenty impossibles ] everybody that I cast had to have a certain identity card that was either a foreign passport or an Israeli identity card because my film was in several different locations and around Jerusalem . In order to have the privilege to move you cannot have a West Bank identity card nor a Gaza identity card so everybody had to be chosen according to their IDs rather than their experience. We are being culturally silenced which has a big effect too, I've been stopped numerous times and I've had cameras confiscated, I've had my laptop confiscated, I've had pictures erased, video erased. [ like twenty impossibles ] was confiscated from me at the airport. Even as an artist you get the feeling that everything you're doing is illegal, is criminalised, even though it's not, it's very mundane activities.
Abdel: It's completely connected to the Palestinian issue. It's very difficult to get equipment " you have to find a foreigner friend or a foreign company to support you to bring a camera. Sometimes you need a lot of things, light, cassettes. Checkpoints aren't always open. You can't get things easily. They confiscated a DV camera just because we were sitting in a checkpoint. The soldiers came and took the camera and they arrested one of the cameramen and after that they denied that he had a camera. It's always a problem that we're facing.
Enas: With [digital] video it's now much better than before, we've got Ramallah and a few production companies in Jerusalem , I don't know about Gaza I've never been there, but there are many production companies with good equipment and good editing suites. The main problem is with film, whether it's 35 or 16mm it needs certain specifications, you need a certain camera, a certain crew with certain skills so that's why many Palestinian productions like Divine Intervention and Paradise Now have foreigners working among the crew. The equipment is either from Tel Aviv or the country of co-production like France or Germany . It's sad but at the same time I think we are taking it step by step. In time the more films we make the more crew members we'll have and the more that production companies will consider actually buying this equipment to serve the local filmmakers, but at the moment we're kind of dependent on Israeli/European crew or equipment.
Where do your films get shown?
Annemarie: both Enas and I work with Dreams of a Nation, we had a festival in Palestine . The original idea was to show Palestinian films to Palestinians because we never get to see our own films. The main ones like Divine Intervention, yes, but not other ones. Nobody could get to Jerusalem so screenings ended up being in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and in Gaza. The films were coming to people since they can't get to Jerusalem " it's easier to get to Scotland now than to Jerusalem . There were movie theatres in Palestine . When my parents lived in Bethlehem there were three movie theatres there, and Jerusalem had four. Those were all shut down after '67 but now in the last decade there's been a resurgence, there's a theatre in Ramallah and there's the Ramallah film festival which started last year.
Enas: We do screen films but when we go to the theatre we see only a few people among the audience, it's very hard to get the people out of their homes because they're not used to going to the cinema. I remember me and my friends had to personally invite people and say you have to come, then it was full. But usually when you just put an ad in the newspaper, or there is a small magazine called This Week in Palestine that covers all the cultural events in Palestine for a week, but nobody really cares, they say I'll get it on a DVD. But now I think it's getting much better because people are more aware that we have cinema that's going to Cannes , to Berlin , that we've got filmmakers in the States, that we've got a unique cinema. I think it will change with time.
Annemarie: There's a lot of Arab film festivals actually and there's been a lot of Palestinian film festivals in the past few years. There's an Arab film festival in San Francisco and Chicago has a Palestinian film festival. Dreams of a Nation was the first New York Palestinian film festival, but in Texas there's a Palestinian film festival, in London there's a Palestinian film festival. We're working now with Copenhagen and next year they're going to do a Palestinian film festival " there are a lot ¦ Even after Divine Intervention won the jury prize in Cannes no American distributor touched the film, nobody wanted it, they were afraid of it and this tiny distribution company in New York picked it up " two young guys with very little experience " Avatar Films " no one had heard of them, everybody else was afraid of it. I know that in New York certain theatres refused to show the film.
How do you finance your films?
Annemarie: We have to beg Europeans for money! The Arab world does not support cinema because of many reasons, one of them being the political situation in Palestine , there hasn't been money put aside for the arts, there are more important issues " health issues, emergency medical issues, these sort of things and there aren't really funds for artists. I have to get my money from grants, from organisations, from co-productions, so far that's the way it's been.
Zeina: a few wealthy individuals will give you money, you just have to know who, there are a lot of wealthy individuals all over the middle east who will give you money for your films if they believe you have a point. All my money came from private individuals except for when my school acknowledged the film and gave me a tiny scholarship, a Warner Brothers Award which was $3000. It's mainly private, like foundations or individuals. I didn't get anything from the Palestinian Diaspora ¦ Saudi and the Gulf is where I get most of my money, especially Dubai.
Enas: Like Annemarie said it's very hard to get funding, most of the filmmakers that really succeed in doing a film go outside and they bring money to Palestine but it's really hard for a Palestinian filmmaker inside Palestine to get money to do films. I finished studying five years ago and went back and I'm still struggling now. You have to go outside and bring the money inside.
Is it easy to become a filmmaker in Palestine ?
Annemarie: I have a friend in Ramallah who is amazing, a very talented filmmaker and animator who has received scholarships to study animation. He was accepted to an animation school in Australia , everything was paid for, everything was set up and he was denied a visa, so he was stuck in Ramallah and has been for several years, he's not allowed out. Then he was accepted to a school in Canada " same thing, full scholarship he was ready to go and again his visa was rejected.
Enas: Many can't make it to film school " we don't have a film school in Palestine, there's one in Israel but not in Palestine.
Abdel: Some universities are doing courses in scriptwriting or shooting or editing, they bring in experience from outside the country and give small courses.
Enas: A documentary narrating a certain story doesn't need a huge budget and you can do this story and tell it in your way with a camera and editing suite. But if you want to do a fiction, a drama, then that is kind of different production that needs a certain budget which is hard to get so it's very difficult from that angle but not as difficult when you're doing a very small short documentary or experimental or video art or installation, it depends really on the kind of production you want to do.
Annemarie: even if it's cheap to make films there's another issue too, Abdel have you ever been shot at when you were filming as a cameraman?
Abdel: Yeah! A lot of times! Can I show you? I was making a test you know, and there were snipers in the street and they started shooting and a bullet went into my leg. That's a real issue. It's really serious, it's a risk.
Abdel Salam Shehadeh is a filmmaker and cameraman from Rafah in Gaza , making his own films and documentaries as well as working for international news crews. His films include Rainbow, The Shadow and Debris.
Annemarie Jacir was born in Saudi Arabia and now works as a filmmaker in the Ramallah, Palestine. Her most recent short film like twenty impossibles premiered in Cannes and she is currently working on her first feature Salt of this Sea.
Enas Muthaffar was born in Jerusalem, she is currently doing an MA in feature film at Goldsmiths College and is writing her first feature screenplay after completing a short film East to West.
Zeina Durra is a New York film school graduate and was awarded the Warner Bros Pictures Film Production Award for her thesis film The Seventh Dog, which follows the themes of her previous short films to combine comedy and extravagance with politics.
Is it possible for Palestinians to make a film without referencing politics?
Enas: it's always possible to do films about different things, about personal stories. Like in my film it was not only about Palestine it was about a home, and you could do that film in Ireland or South Africa , any other part of the world. There are of course other films like Thirst, which is also about a place, it's not really Palestine . I guess for most of us as film directors it's the reality that I think rules our feelings and our direction.
Annemarie: I think what Palestinians are making are films about are their experiences and that's what people do everywhere - I don't think it's specific to Palestinians. French people make films about French experience, every French movie that is set in France is about being French ¦ It's very natural to make a film about your experiences, and if you are under occupation then naturally that would come into it, if you are under surveillance in New York that would come into it, that's the situation of your life.
Zeina: It's just the context of where they're set, the stories, like you have universal stories which are often set in political backgrounds whether it's in post 9/11 New York or Paris ¦ I think just by nature of who I am and my identity I'll always make films which have some kind of political comment ¦ I feel that's something that I think filmmakers who come from our part of the world can't help but escape, there will always be some sort of social element.
Annemarie: It's a real privilege also to be able to make a film about whatever you want. I don't think most Palestinians have that privilege. I think it's a privilege to be able to escape and be free and not have to do a racehorse movie ¦ As a Palestinian everything I approach comes from the position of someone who believes in human equality and liberation, everything I approach no matter what it is comes from that spot, and also from being an underdog and knowing that there's always another side and there's always a voice that's being crushed somewhere.
Abdel: I think that we have to focus on our people, our suffering, our land, this is something which we lose, we lose the land, we lose a lot of things and we have to show that we are under occupation, I think that's very important, and to show that we are refugees and we are looking for our independent state.
Enas: You do a story, it's not about Palestinian liberation, but you write and you imagine something so that your characters and the story you want to tell belong to a place and that place is Palestine with certain circumstances, so if we don't show that at least in the background then we will lose our credibility 'cos the place is still our place. It has to come in the background of the story because it's part of the place itself.
Zeina: I think it's very important for me anyway to work with some actors who have a political conscience, at least my lead actors have to have some understanding of the world because it's very important for me when I work with them, not everyone but just those people who are carrying the weight of the film, which is very difficult to find.
What is it like making films in Palestine ?
Annemarie: Everything has become criminalised in Palestine : moving from one Palestinian city to another to visit your aunt is criminalised, you need a permit for that, you need permission to do this. I think Palestinians are the most creative people on earth for what they have to deal with, I mean forget about film " everything has to be done in a creative way. To live your life you have to get around that and to think about a new way to approach everything you do, so as artists that also effects everything we do. In my film [ like twenty impossibles ] everybody that I cast had to have a certain identity card that was either a foreign passport or an Israeli identity card because my film was in several different locations and around Jerusalem . In order to have the privilege to move you cannot have a West Bank identity card nor a Gaza identity card so everybody had to be chosen according to their IDs rather than their experience. We are being culturally silenced which has a big effect too, I've been stopped numerous times and I've had cameras confiscated, I've had my laptop confiscated, I've had pictures erased, video erased. [ like twenty impossibles ] was confiscated from me at the airport. Even as an artist you get the feeling that everything you're doing is illegal, is criminalised, even though it's not, it's very mundane activities.
Abdel: It's completely connected to the Palestinian issue. It's very difficult to get equipment " you have to find a foreigner friend or a foreign company to support you to bring a camera. Sometimes you need a lot of things, light, cassettes. Checkpoints aren't always open. You can't get things easily. They confiscated a DV camera just because we were sitting in a checkpoint. The soldiers came and took the camera and they arrested one of the cameramen and after that they denied that he had a camera. It's always a problem that we're facing.
Enas: With [digital] video it's now much better than before, we've got Ramallah and a few production companies in Jerusalem , I don't know about Gaza I've never been there, but there are many production companies with good equipment and good editing suites. The main problem is with film, whether it's 35 or 16mm it needs certain specifications, you need a certain camera, a certain crew with certain skills so that's why many Palestinian productions like Divine Intervention and Paradise Now have foreigners working among the crew. The equipment is either from Tel Aviv or the country of co-production like France or Germany . It's sad but at the same time I think we are taking it step by step. In time the more films we make the more crew members we'll have and the more that production companies will consider actually buying this equipment to serve the local filmmakers, but at the moment we're kind of dependent on Israeli/European crew or equipment.
Where do your films get shown?
Annemarie: both Enas and I work with Dreams of a Nation, we had a festival in Palestine . The original idea was to show Palestinian films to Palestinians because we never get to see our own films. The main ones like Divine Intervention, yes, but not other ones. Nobody could get to Jerusalem so screenings ended up being in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and in Gaza. The films were coming to people since they can't get to Jerusalem " it's easier to get to Scotland now than to Jerusalem . There were movie theatres in Palestine . When my parents lived in Bethlehem there were three movie theatres there, and Jerusalem had four. Those were all shut down after '67 but now in the last decade there's been a resurgence, there's a theatre in Ramallah and there's the Ramallah film festival which started last year.
Enas: We do screen films but when we go to the theatre we see only a few people among the audience, it's very hard to get the people out of their homes because they're not used to going to the cinema. I remember me and my friends had to personally invite people and say you have to come, then it was full. But usually when you just put an ad in the newspaper, or there is a small magazine called This Week in Palestine that covers all the cultural events in Palestine for a week, but nobody really cares, they say I'll get it on a DVD. But now I think it's getting much better because people are more aware that we have cinema that's going to Cannes , to Berlin , that we've got filmmakers in the States, that we've got a unique cinema. I think it will change with time.
Annemarie: There's a lot of Arab film festivals actually and there's been a lot of Palestinian film festivals in the past few years. There's an Arab film festival in San Francisco and Chicago has a Palestinian film festival. Dreams of a Nation was the first New York Palestinian film festival, but in Texas there's a Palestinian film festival, in London there's a Palestinian film festival. We're working now with Copenhagen and next year they're going to do a Palestinian film festival " there are a lot ¦ Even after Divine Intervention won the jury prize in Cannes no American distributor touched the film, nobody wanted it, they were afraid of it and this tiny distribution company in New York picked it up " two young guys with very little experience " Avatar Films " no one had heard of them, everybody else was afraid of it. I know that in New York certain theatres refused to show the film.
How do you finance your films?
Annemarie: We have to beg Europeans for money! The Arab world does not support cinema because of many reasons, one of them being the political situation in Palestine , there hasn't been money put aside for the arts, there are more important issues " health issues, emergency medical issues, these sort of things and there aren't really funds for artists. I have to get my money from grants, from organisations, from co-productions, so far that's the way it's been.
Zeina: a few wealthy individuals will give you money, you just have to know who, there are a lot of wealthy individuals all over the middle east who will give you money for your films if they believe you have a point. All my money came from private individuals except for when my school acknowledged the film and gave me a tiny scholarship, a Warner Brothers Award which was $3000. It's mainly private, like foundations or individuals. I didn't get anything from the Palestinian Diaspora ¦ Saudi and the Gulf is where I get most of my money, especially Dubai.
Enas: Like Annemarie said it's very hard to get funding, most of the filmmakers that really succeed in doing a film go outside and they bring money to Palestine but it's really hard for a Palestinian filmmaker inside Palestine to get money to do films. I finished studying five years ago and went back and I'm still struggling now. You have to go outside and bring the money inside.
Is it easy to become a filmmaker in Palestine ?
Annemarie: I have a friend in Ramallah who is amazing, a very talented filmmaker and animator who has received scholarships to study animation. He was accepted to an animation school in Australia , everything was paid for, everything was set up and he was denied a visa, so he was stuck in Ramallah and has been for several years, he's not allowed out. Then he was accepted to a school in Canada " same thing, full scholarship he was ready to go and again his visa was rejected.
Enas: Many can't make it to film school " we don't have a film school in Palestine, there's one in Israel but not in Palestine.
Abdel: Some universities are doing courses in scriptwriting or shooting or editing, they bring in experience from outside the country and give small courses.
Enas: A documentary narrating a certain story doesn't need a huge budget and you can do this story and tell it in your way with a camera and editing suite. But if you want to do a fiction, a drama, then that is kind of different production that needs a certain budget which is hard to get so it's very difficult from that angle but not as difficult when you're doing a very small short documentary or experimental or video art or installation, it depends really on the kind of production you want to do.
Annemarie: even if it's cheap to make films there's another issue too, Abdel have you ever been shot at when you were filming as a cameraman?
Abdel: Yeah! A lot of times! Can I show you? I was making a test you know, and there were snipers in the street and they started shooting and a bullet went into my leg. That's a real issue. It's really serious, it's a risk.
