The screening on 7 November will be followed by a panel discussion hosted by The New Arab.

Palestine’s Official Submission for the Academy Awards is set in 1936 Mandatory Palestine. Yusuf flees his rural home for Jerusalem’s charged streets, forced to confront colonial rule, rising migration and the inexorable drift toward a defining revolt. As villages across Mandatory Palestine rise against British colonial rule, Yusuf drifts between his rural home and the restless energy of Jerusalem, longing for a future beyond the growing unrest.

The Garden Cinema View:

Annemarie Jacir (Salt of this Sea, Wajib) tackles the pre-Nakba peasant revolt of 1936, and the wider colonial context, in this ambitious and wide-reaching epic. In order to weave together dense geopolitical context and fictional plot, Jacir quite deftly creates a patchwork of characters - the young Yousef who hails from a small village, Afra and her family of farmers, Amir, an influential newspaper editor, and his journalist wife Khuloud, Father Boulos, the village priest, and the British dignitaries - whose personal intertwined stories play out against the consequences of the factual history.

Unsurprisingly, and despite weaving so many strands together (including archival footage), Annemarie Jacir does so seamlessly. And although the various protagonists are fairly archetypal, she creates real emotional engagement with their respective destinies, and rouses anger at the cruelty and injustice of the decades that would follow, and that would eventually lead us to what we are witnessing today.

The New Arab is a progressive London-based news site that covers issues from the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. It offers a platform for diverse, expert voices and has become a trusted source for news, analysis and commentary for and about the region.

Cast:
Hiam Abbass, Kamel Al Basha, Yasmine Al-Massri