Unspoken silences: reclaiming colonial archives of Palestine
How do we go about addressing the past through archival images when what we see is through the eye of the coloniser? How do we gain access to and reclaim that archive, when it is not in our possession? This programme is an open invitation to revisit Palestine in two different eras, with colonial visual material reimagined in the first with music and sound by artists Rana Eid and Cynthia Zaven, and in the second with open reflections by filmmaker Theo Panagapoulos about his own Palestinian heritage. A conversation with the three artists will follow.
Cineconcert – Palestine: A Revised Narrative
فلسطين – سردية منقّحة
Rana Eid, Cynthia Zaven
Palestine – A Revised Narrative is a 30-minute film edited from 77 silent clips shot on 35mm between 1914 and 1918 by British Forces in Palestine, accompanied with specially crafted sound design and music. In this singular piece, sound designer Rana Eid and music composer Cynthia Zaven reflect on the British imperial narrative of this turning point in history by placing it within the context of a century of events that followed the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the birth of nation-states in the Middle East.
This piece, presented for the first time in the UK, was originally commissioned by ALFILM, Arab Film Festival of Berlin for its 15th edition (April 2024), featuring archival material courtesy of the Imperial War Museums.
The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing
الزهور تقف بصمت، شاهدة
Director: Theo Panagopoulos
Producer: Marissa Keating
Country: United Kingdom
Release: 2024
Run time: 17 minutes
Language: English, Arabic
When a filmmaker of Palestinian descent based in Scotland unearths a rarely-seen Scottish film archive of Palestinian wildflowers, he decides to reclaim the footage. This tender film essay questions the role of image-making as a tool of both testimony and violence when connected to entanglements between people and the land.
About the artists
Rana Eid
Rana Eid was born in 1976 in Beirut. She has worked as sound editor since 2003 on various Lebanese films, collaborating with a number of acclaimed Lebanese filmmakers such as Joanna Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Ghassan Salhab, Mohammad Soueid… In 2006, Eid has opened DB STUDIOS for audio post production with composer NadimMishlawi. DB Studios is now a partner with French association of sound Polyson/HAL. Since then she is working on films from the region and the world (Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Soudan, Morocco, India, China, Nepal, Macedonia, USA, England, Belgium etc..), teaming up with established filmmakers as well as emerging talents. In 2017, She directed her first Feature Documentary “Panoptic”, which premiered in Locarno Film Festival, and participated in many festivals. In 2019, she worked on the sound design of two Academy Award nominated films, “The Cave” by Firas Fayyad, and “Honeyland” by Tamara Kotevska and Ljubomir Stephanov. “Hot Milk”, the feature debut of Rebecca Lenkiewicz, on which Rana Eid has worked as a sound designer, premiered at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival, im Competition.
Cynthia Zaven
Cynthia Zaven is a composer, pianist and artist based in Beirut. Her projects combine a variety of media including video and the use of archive material to explore the relationship between sound, memory and identity through interwoven narratives. Her works have been internationally exhibited in museums and biennales. Since 1993, Zaven has also created sound design for theater, live performance, dance, conceptual art projects, and composed original scores for film. The award-winning works have been screened at venues worldwide including the film festivals at Cannes, Locarno, Toronto, Sao Paolo, as well at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London and Oxford’s Museum of Modern Art. She has written for musicians and vocalists such as the Neue Vocalsolisten, the Ensemble Modern and the Danapris String Quartet. Her music has been published by the Berlin based label, Staalplaat. Zaven is a professor of classical piano at the Higher National Conservatory of Music in Beirut.
Theo Panagopoulos
Theo Panagopoulos is a Greek-Lebanese-Palestinian filmmaker based in Scotland. His work explores themes of collective memory, displacement, fragmented identities and archives. He has directed multiple short films that screened in reputable festivals such as Sundance, Doc Lisboa, Thessaloniki among others and his most recent film called The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing won the best short film award at IDFA 2024. He is currently completing his PhD research on colonial film archives connected to 1930s Palestine.