Palestinian Cinema in the Days of Revolution by Nadia Yaqub (review)

Based on the study of more than thirty films, primary documents, periodical literature, and interviews, Palestinian Cinema in the Days of Revolution examines Palestinian films made by the Palestine Liberation Organization and its allies between 1968 and 1982. More than a hundred films were made during this period, mostly modest documentaries and shorts. The book traces the history of this filmmaking, situating it within regional and global conversations and practices surrounding filmmaking of the era. It analyzes the films, the material conditions of their creation, their distribution and viewership, and their afterlives. Exuberantly experimental in its earliest years, Palestinian film became more ideologically constrained as the decade wore on, even as access to resources improved and distribution networks expanded. At the same time, repeated violence strained the ideological frame within which filmmakers worked. Nonetheless, surviving works play an important role on the social media of diasporic Palestinian communities and for Palestinian filmmakers today.

Shooting for the film Tall el Zaatar (1977). Ghassan Mattar holds the microphone while Marwan Salamah is behind the camera and Mustafa Abu Ali is beside him. (Photo courtesy of Marwan Salamah)