Abstract
This chapter traces the evolution of the Palestine Film Unit into the Palestinian Cinema Institution (PCI), including thwarted attempts to produce a fiction film and the development of the short-lived Palestinian Cinema Group (PCG) established by Palestinian filmmakers with other intellectuals. Scenes from the Occupation of Gaza, the only film produced by the PCG, won the golden prize for short films at the Baghdad International Film and TV Programs Festival on Palestine in 1973. They Do Not Exist is also highlighted as a revolutionary film that experimented with cinematic form from this period, which is interrupted by the martyrdom of Hani Jawharieh months after his arrival in Beirut. His commemorations transformed into a progressive step of the PCI’s work, despite the harsh circumstances under which the cinematographers worked.
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Notes
- 1.
From Rashad Abu Shawer’s introduction to our self-published script of Al-Mutashail (The Pessoptimist) written by Mustafa Abu Ali presented and distributed to the Palestine Cinema Days film festival at FilmLab in Ramallah, October 2014, p. 7–8.
- 2.
Mustafa Al-Aqqad, an American film director and producer of Syrian origin, worked in Hollywood and directed the films The Message (1976) and Lion of the Desert (1981), also known as Omar Al-Mukhtar.
- 3.
Abdel Mohsin Al-Qattan, a well-known Palestinian businessman and economist, is one of the founders of Taawon, an organization dedicated to supporting and funding Palestinian cultural projects.
- 4.
Tawfiq Saleh, an Egyptian writer and filmmaker, had a new, progressive vision for cinema. This was demonstrated in his critical films including Darb Al Mahabeel (Fools’ Road) which he collaborated on with Egyptian novelist Najib Mahfouz in 1955, and The Rebels and Struggles of Heroes which forced him to leave Egypt and live in exile in Syria. There, he made The Dupes, adapted from Ghassan Kanafani’s novella Men in the Sun, produced by the General Cinema Institute in Damascus 1972.
- 5.
Hassan Abu Ghanimeh. Palestine and the Cinematic Eye (Damascus: Union of Arab Writers, 1981), p. 263–266.
- 6.
Anis Al-Sayigh is a Palestinian writer and head of the Palestine Research Center. He has published numerous books about the history of Palestine and the Palestinian cause.
- 7.
The text of the statement is found in Appendix A.
- 8.
Abu Ghanimeh, Palestine and the Cinematic Eye, p. 331–332.
- 9.
Ibid., p. 333.
- 10.
Ibid., p. 334.
- 11.
The text of the statement is found in Appendix A.
- 12.
Qais Al-Zubaidi, an Iraqi leftist militant, directed several documentaries about the Palestinian cause. He is also a researcher and film critic.
- 13.
Al-Zubaidi, “From Revolution to Cinema,” an unpublished paper written in preparation for a panel on the fiftieth anniversary of the first Palestinian film, September 2019, which was postponed due to political demonstrations in Lebanon at the time.
- 14.
Ghaleb Sha’ath, a Palestinian film director, studied in Vienna, where he received a diploma in engineering in 1963, and a diploma in film directing from the Cinema Institute in 1967. He worked in Egyptian cinema and participated in establishing the New Cinema Group in Egypt in 1968, where he directed the film Shadows on the Other Side (1974).
- 15.
Mustafa Abu Ali, “The Martyr of Palestinian Cinema,” in Palestinian Image magazine, First Issue, November (Beirut: Palestinian Cinema Institution, 1978), p. 16–17.
- 16.
Mustafa Abu Ali, “Hani as Cinematographer,” in Palestinian Image magazine, Second Issue, November (Beirut: Palestinian Cinema Institution, 1979), p. 11–12.
- 17.
Mustafa Abu Ali, “Snapshots of the Cinematic Experience During the Lebanese War (1975-1976),” in Palestinian Image magazine, First issue, November (Beirut: Palestinian Cinema Institution, 1978), p. 16–19.
- 18.
“We Are Originally Fighters,” interview with the cinematographer Omar Al-Mukhtar, Palestinian Image magazine, First issue, November (Beirut: Palestinian Cinema Institution, 1978), p. 9–10. It is unclear who gave this interview as the writers often did not identify themselves by name.
- 19.
Interview with Samir Nimr by Walid Chmait in Palestine in Cinema, 2nd ed. (Ramallah: Palestinian Ministry of Culture, 2006), p. 229.
- 20.
British actress Vanessa Redgrave started her career in theatre in Britain, then went on to act in several Hollywood films, winning the Oscar for Best Actress in the 1978 film Julia. She is also a political activist and a member of the British Worker’s Revolutionary Party, and produced a documentary The Palestinian (1977), with the cooperation of the PCI.
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Habashneh, K. (2023). From Palestine Film Unit to Palestinian Cinema Institution. In: Knights of Cinema. Palgrave Studies in Arab Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18858-9_5
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