By Tamar Baumgarten-Noort. Every Palestinian, as filmmaker Mai Masri writes in “This Week in Palestine“, has an imaginary vision of Palestine in his or her head, a self-constructed image they can re-watch over and over again like a movie. Without such fantasy images, Masri writes, it isn't possible to preserve a distinct national identity in this world affected by so much injustice and despair. Palestinian cinema is indeed a product of thought. In fact any kind of film production would be impossible within the Palestinian territories without outside help. But since this help is motivated by politics most of the time, independent Palestinian cinema is hardly possible on home ground.

The outside perspective

This is also due to the absence of one of the main components for a thriving cinematic culture: In 1987, with the beginning of the first Intifada, the last movie theatre in Gaza had to close down. Since then films are only screened from DVD on behalf of foundations – with the choice of film closely related to the political motivation of said foundation. But still some Palestinian artists have chosen the cinematic form to express themselves within the last couple of years. The films that originated like this deal with people in the occupied territories, and they have a political conflict at the core of the narrative most of the time, but not always. But those movies are mostly produced in exile. Palestinians have found a home elsewhere – in the US alone half a million people from the occupied territories are living. They exchange stories and experiences with other artists, taking an outside perspective on the conflict. So a movie being created in exile can never show an “inner“ image – it always incorporates the outside view, too. Not least since this is a condition for funding by European or US investors: funding is granted for projects giving a view of the Palestinian situation that is as subjective as possible. Every project is evaluated politically. So the Palestinian cinema is political by nature – even before the first scene is shot.

Politicizing film has a long tradition in Palestinian filmmaking. At the end of the 1960s, when the first Palestinian movies were produced, artists used the medium to alert the world to their own situation. The Palestine Liberty Organisation (PLO) financed film projects out of their Lebanese exile. Their film fund organisation and the archive were broken up by the Israeli invasion of 1982.

Films for the occupied territories

Since the middle of 1990s, some filmmakers have returned from their exiles and tried to shift the centre of their filmmaking back into their homelands. Their aim is not to grapple with questions of their national identity exclusively anymore. The Initiative Palestine Film Forum, founded in 2004, tries to rebuild the broken down cultural infrastructure in the occupied territories. They are screening movies, inviting directors for talks, collecting money for film projects and hoping to one day teach new talents. In the long run they want to build up a global network of all the scattered Palestinian filmmakers. But their immediate goal is to re-establish another movie theatre in the occupied territories.

Links

• CARRIED BY THE WIND (PS 2008. Adam Sèbire)