It’s been three years since the Palestinian Film Festival was mounted in Australia. It returns in November with an eclectic mix of narrative and documentary films for its 11th year.
Palestinian cinema has not had an easy nor very long history. Its birth is marked by the 1935 documentary on King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia‘s visit in 1935 to Palestine, made by Ibrahim Hassan Sirhan. From 1948 to 1967, following the disastrous dispossession of Palestinian society known as the Nakba, where half of Palestine’s Arab population was expelled or fled their homes, cinema went dark.
After 1967, filmmaking was controlled by the PLO, and today Hamas must approve all film projects. In one case, in 2010, Hamas banned the short film Something Sweet, directed by Khalil al-Muzzayen, which was submitted at the Cannes Film Festival. The reason they cited was a four-second scene in which a Palestinian woman walks past Israeli soldiers with her hair uncovered.
This year’s festival offers a sweep of palate, from the haunting Oscar submission, The Stranger to the Opening Night film, Farha, bringing heart to those who thought that Palestinian filmmaking had not survived the combination of Covid, the war in Syria (brought into stark focus in The Stranger), and the ongoing tragedy of the Israeli occupation. Other notable films include the SXSW hit documentary, Boycott and a retrospective screening of Palestine’s first ever feature film, Return to Haifa.
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