Tag: Annemarie Jacir

ARAB FILMS : ‘PALESTINE 36’ leads Critics Awards for Arab Films nominations

 Annemarie Jacir’s award-winning film “Palestine 36” leads the nominations for the 10th Critics Awards For Arab Films, which were announced on Wednesday.

The annual prizes, organized by the Arab Cinema Center, have been voted on by a record 307 Arab and international critics from 75 countries this year, with the awards ceremony due to take place during the Cannes Film Festival on May 16.

“Palestine 36” has been nominated in six categories including best film, director and screenplay.  It is followed by Maryam Touzani’s “Calle Malaga” with five nominations; Cherien Dabis’ “All That’s Left of You” with four; and “Yunan,” “My Father’s Scent,” and “Once Upon a Time in Gaza” with three each.

Kaouther Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated “The Voice of Hind Rajab” garnered one nomination in the best director category.

“Palestine 36” is set during the 1936 Arab Revolt and follows five interconnected narratives as villages across Palestine confront British colonial rule.

With rising numbers of Jewish immigrants escaping antisemitism in Europe, and the Palestinian population uniting against Britain’s 30-year dominion, all sides spiral toward inevitable collision in a decisive moment for the British Empire and the future of the entire region. 

“I hope people see themselves in the film,” she told Arab News in December last year. “I don’t want to teach anyone anything. There’s a lot of history in the film and there’s a lot of history that’s been erased. I hope that’s something that comes through.” 

source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)

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Annemarie Jacir’s award-winning film “Palestine 36” leads the nominations for the 10th Critics Awards For Arab Films, which were announced on Wednesday. (Supplied)

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ARAB FILMS / PALESTINIAN

PALESTINE : ‘Palestine 36’ shines light on Arab revolt against British rule

In “Palestine 36,” director Annemarie Jacir recounts a year of Arab revolt against British colonial rule that she says is crucial to understanding current events in the Middle East.

“You can’t understand where we are today without understanding 1936,” Jacir told AFP a day after the film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Palestinian filmmaker, who lives in the Israeli city of Haifa, was motivated to make the film, in part, to redress a lack of awareness about the consequences of British policies during the so-called mandate period, before Israel’s creation in 1948.

“I wanted to really point the finger at the British,” she said.

The film features a mostly Arabic-speaking cast, including Hiam Abbass from HBO’s “Succession,” and Jeremy Irons as a British high commissioner unsettled by rising violence and protests against the colonial administration.

With Jewish immigration from Europe increasing and Palestinian villagers concerned about further loss of land, Arab support for armed revolt against the British surges.

The film details the brutal crackdown launched to contain the violence.

Villagers are beaten, people are arrested en masse while soldiers torch homes after searching them for weapons.

They are tactics Jacir said Israel’s army learned from the British and have used since against Palestinians living under occupation.

But Jacir — who was born in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank — told AFP a key goal of the film was to shine a spotlight on the British colonial practice of divide and rule, which was used across the empire.

The narrative in “Palestine 36” builds toward the publication of the Peel Commission’s report, a British inquiry into the causes of Arab and Jewish unrest in Palestine.

The commission recommended Palestine be partitioned — with separate areas for Jews and Arabs — a finding that influenced the United Nations-backed partition plan that coincided with Israel’s creation.

“It was a British policy: first, we’ll bring (Arabs and Jews) together,” Jacir said.

Then “we separate… It was a tactic of control,” she added.

Jacir said the reception for the film at Friday’s world premiere was overwhelming.

“Yesterday was crazy,” she told AFP, an outpouring of support likely tied to widespread outrage over the conflict in Gaza.

She voiced hope that the film could foster broader awareness about the lasting impacts of the British mandate period in Palestine.

“I’m shocked how many people have told me when I tell them about the film, they were like, ‘the British were in Palestine?'”

British rule, she said, was “decisive.”

source/content: english.ahram.org.eg (headline edited)

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Annemarie Jacir, director of “Palestine 36” at The Toronto International Film Festival (Photo: AFP)

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PALESTINE