Palestinian Cinema – Landscape, Trauma, and Memory

Although in recent years the entire world has been increasingly concerned with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there are few truly reliable sources of information about Palestinian society and culture. One of the best sources for understanding Palestinian culture is the cinema, which has strived to delineate Palestinian history and to portray the daily lives of Palestinian men, women, and children. Here, an Israeli and a Palestinian scholar, in a rare and welcome collaboration, follow the development of Palestinian cinema, commenting on its response to political and social transformations. They reveal that the more that social, political, and economic conditions have worsened and chaos and pain prevail, the more Palestinian cinema has engaged with the national struggle.

Exploring Palestinian cinema from both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives, Gertz (Open Univ. and Tel Aviv Univ.) and Khleifi (Palestinian filmmaker; director, Institute of Modern Media, Al Quds Univ., Ramallah) find that as the conflict between Israel and Palestine worsens, Palestinian cinema reflects a changing and more difficult social, political, and economic environment. In the earliest Palestinian cinema (the 1970s), the individual represents an unchanging collective, its struggles, and its fate, but by the 1980s the individual has become a distinct entity. The films of the 1990s refine that approach, looking deeper at the mundane life of average Palestinians. These cinematic representations exist in dynamic opposition to Israeli character, and Palestinian cinema develops to represent this tragic relationship. The films the authors examine are well chosen: they chronicle the Palestinian effort at self-definition and preservation in the midst of continual national chaos emerges. Although the conclusions may seem obvious, two elements mark this work as seminal: the ongoing conflict makes analysis of Palestinian society and politics rare; even rarer is a concerted analytical effort by representatives of both sides. The latter, in particular, makes this volume important scholarship and (one hopes) a model for future collaboration. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers, all levels.S. Kowtko, Spokane Community College, Choice, September 2008 Although in recent years the entire world has been increasingly concerned with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there are few truly reliable sources of information about Palestinian society and culture. One of the best sources for understanding Palestinian culture is the cinema, which has strived to delineate Palestinian history and to portray the daily lives of Palestinian men, women, and children. Here, an Israeli and a Palestinian scholar follow the development of Palestinian cinema, commenting on its response to political and social transformations. They find that the more social, political, and economic conditions have worsened and chaos and pain prevail, the more Palestinian cinema has engaged with the national struggle.Joseph Haberer, Book Editor, SHOFAR, Vol. 27, 1 Fall 2008 "Exploring Palestinian cinema from both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives, Gertz... and Khleifi... find that as the conflict between Israel and Palestine worsens, Palestinian cinema reflects a changing and more difficult social, political, and economic environment... The films the authors examine are well chosen: they chronicle the Palestinian effort at self-definition and preservation in the midst of continual national chaos emerges... [T]wo elements mark this work as seminal: the ongoing conflict makes analysis of Palestinian society and politics rare; even rarer is a concerted analytical effort by r

Nurith Gertz is Professor of Cinema and Literature at the Open University and Professor and Head of the Program in Theory and History in the Department of Cinema and Television at Tel Aviv University. Her numerous books include Myths in Israeli Culture and Not From Here. She lives in Jerusalem. George Khleifi is a Palestinian filmmaker and Deputy Director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University, Ramallah. He is the author of numerous articles on Palestinian cinema. He lives in Nazareth.