Art for the Struggle, Struggle for the Art
classified 18 (CTBA) SArt for the Struggle, Struggle for the Art is a collection of five short films from the revolutionary period of Palestinian cinema – from 1968 to 1974 – exploring the importance of archive film in social and cultural documentation.
Far Away From Home (dir. Qais Al-Zubaidi, 1969, 11min)
A beautiful and moving experiment in which Al-Zubaidi invited the children he had just filmed in Al-Sabineh Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to narrate their own footage.
The Game (dir. Shirak, 1973, 16min)
A short fiction film—a rarity in the era of revolutionary cinema—that lays painfully bare the cycle of violence children are subjected to, and the inevitable consequences of that violence.
Cowboy (dir. Sami Al-Salamoni, 1973, 15min)
An experimental montage of archive and re-appropriated Hollywood footage that creates links between the treatment of Native Americans, the dispossession of the Palestinians, and the representations of these and other genocides in cinema history.
Quneitra 74 (dir. Mohammad Malas, 1974, 20min)
A docu-fiction film on displacement, reconstruction, and the fragility of memory this film returns with the inhabitants of Quneitra to their Golan Heights village after its destruction by the Israeli military.
Children Without Childhood (dir. Khadijeh Habashneh, 1972, 21min)
Co-produced by the General Union of Palestinian Women, this film from one of Palestinian cinema’s chief archivists reflects both the suffering and endurance of the orphans of Bayt Al-Sumud (The House of Steadfastness).
This screening will be followed by a talk by curator Saeed Taji Faroukhy.