The documentary Palestine Underground follows a group of artists who are challenging divisions between Palestinians living in the West Bank and those in Israel through the dance floor.
Hip hop, techno, trap and traditional music nurture new and known cultural impulses among Palestinians on either side of Israel’s West Bank wall, ushering in a new era of resistance.
“We are the third generation of The Catastrophe [as Palestinians call the ethnic cleansing that came with Israel’s founding in 1948] and we don’t want to victimise ourselves anymore,” states Haifa DJ and Jazar Crew member Ayed. “We are bored actually from that.”
Boiler Room, a music broadcasting platform, commissioned the documentary after discovering an underground network of DJs and producers working between Ramallah, Jaffa and Haifa, quietly battling apartheid and occupation through club events. The final cut is an intimate portrait of key artists and collectives, building up to Boiler Room’s first livestream in Ramallah.
Underground begins at Israel’s apartheid wall in the occupied West Bank. Ramallah DJ and producer ODDZ ascends the eight-metre-high barrier with a makeshift wooden ladder and ropes down from one side of occupied Palestine onto the other. A body camera captures the moment, which is spliced with thumping scenes from the DJ’s forthcoming set.
He takes this route to play at a venue in Jaffa on the side of the wall generally forbidden to Palestinians holding West Bank IDs.
An eclectic mix of club shots bombards the screen like a perfect party promo before moving to images of everyday life for Palestinians in Israel subjected to discriminatory laws since 1948. The contrast is quickly established and frenetic techno beats fade.
During the film, Israel is simultaneously referred to as “occupied Palestine” and “’48,” terms widely used by Palestinians.
Read the review by Riri Hylton on Green Left Weekly.