The revolutionary period of Palestinian cinema began in 1968 with the founding of the Palestine Film Unit (PFU), dedicated not only to providing visual representation of and political education about the struggle for Palestinian liberation, but to asserting the right of Palestinians to be the subjects of their own representation. The PFU filmmakers did not see themselves as objectively documenting the liberation movement, but as active participants in the resistance. Part of a movement of Third Cinema that challenged both the Hollywood commercial studio system, and the European “Auteur” theory of the individual genius, the filmmakers of the PFU and the solidarity network they developed were dedicated to militant cinema as a social process of witnessing, participating in, promoting, screening, and critiquing the Palestinian liberation movement in all its forms. In one act in a long history of cultural genocide, the Israeli military stole the PFU archive when they withdrew from Beirut in 1982, but since then much of the archive has been reconstituted from distributed copies, remnants, restorations, and remixes.
While the 1960s, 70s, and 80s saw a broad-based, international network of filmmakers in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, today that exercise is much more fraught with questions of identity politics, the exploitation of Palestinian suffering, and cultural / political appropriation. Solidarity Cinema is a roundtable discussion with Palestinian and foreign filmmakers on tactics and best practices for producing selfless and internationalist cinema in genuine solidarity with Palestinians and the Palestinian struggle.
About the curator
Saeed Taji Farouky is a Palestinian-British filmmaker and artist who has been making films around themes of conflict, human rights and colonialism since 1998. He is also a radical educator and runs Radical Film School, a free programme for filmmakers from underrepresented backgrounds to develop political cinema and autonomous exhibition collectives.