Archives, often perceived as impartial guardians of history, are actually deeply entwined with political agendas. In the context of the Palestinian struggle, archives have been systematically pillaged and obliterated by the Israeli state and military, resulting in the loss of invaluable records of Palestinian history and resistance. Among the missing archives are decades of footage by the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Palestine Film Unit (PFU). This collective of militant filmmakers emerged in the late 1960s, utilizing the camera as a tool of resistance to document the Palestinian experience and the struggle for liberation.
The film program features documentaries about the Palestinian film archive and filmic legacy – Azza El-Hassan’s KINGS AND EXTRAS: DIGGING FOR A PALESTINIAN IMAGE (2004), Mohanad Yaqubi’s OFF FRAME (aka REVOLUTION UNTIL VICTORY) (2016)– as well as a selection of earlier films created during the revolutionary Palestinian film era, which have recently been restored as part of El-Hassan’s invaluable initiative, The Void Project, which was founded in 2018 to explore the presence and absence of the Palestinian visual archives as a discourse in narrative formation, and to restore and distribute some of the surviving films of the era.
ARCHIVES OF POWER ultimately strives to amplify the voices and stories that have been marginalized and suppressed, reclaiming agency and autonomy in defiance of ongoing attempts to erase Palestinian history and visual narrative. This program serves as an indispensable platform for comprehending and challenging the mechanisms of oppression and resistance within the domain of archival representation.
The Upper Gate (1991)
Produced by the Palestinian Liberation Organization
“When I returned to Sidon in 1983, it had just been occupied. My sister destroyed several documents in a panic because the Zionist soldiers were coming, and I lost many of my mementoes. Friends were killed, and places I had loved were destroyed. I wanted to capture memories that could not be destroyed. The city had survived, and many people I knew were still living there and taking stock of their losses. Actually, everyone in the documentary was someone I loved, and so the film was in many ways an extended form of my memory.” -Arab Loutfi
Arab Loutfi is a filmmaker, writer, and journalist. After working for many years on feature films with Mohammad Khan and Atef Altayeb,
she moved into the field of documentary filmmaking. Her first documentary, The Upper Gate, was an intensely personal account about Sidon, her hometown, in which she wove a history of the city through the stories of its people. Her second film, Jamila’s Mirror, dealt with the memories of Palestinian female guerrilla fighters, currently in their forties, who were involved in military operations during their teen years. Loufti's subsequent works in filmmaking were Seven Nights and a Dawn, Rango, and The Egyptian Wedding. She later created the films Short Visit; Stories from Gaza; Bird of Prudence; Playing with Democracy; Dark Room, Radiant Life; Tell Your Tale, Little Bird; and Over Their Dead Bodies. In all her works, she attempts to show that by simply taking just two steps out of the world inhabited by the middle class and intellectuals, she can finds a life in which people have their own music, cultural tastes, and passions. She has also sat as a jury member in many film festivals including the Dubai Film Festival, Al Jazeera Film Festival, Docudays Film Festival, Ismailia Film Festival, Documentarist Film Festival, Alexandria Short Film Festival, and others. She is an active member of the Arab Documentary Filmmakers Union, as well as the Egyptian Film Critics Union.
- Year1991
- Runtime90 minutes
- LanguageArabic
- CountryPalestine
- DirectorArab Loutfi
- ProducerPalestinian Liberation Organization
Archives, often perceived as impartial guardians of history, are actually deeply entwined with political agendas. In the context of the Palestinian struggle, archives have been systematically pillaged and obliterated by the Israeli state and military, resulting in the loss of invaluable records of Palestinian history and resistance. Among the missing archives are decades of footage by the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Palestine Film Unit (PFU). This collective of militant filmmakers emerged in the late 1960s, utilizing the camera as a tool of resistance to document the Palestinian experience and the struggle for liberation.
The film program features documentaries about the Palestinian film archive and filmic legacy – Azza El-Hassan’s KINGS AND EXTRAS: DIGGING FOR A PALESTINIAN IMAGE (2004), Mohanad Yaqubi’s OFF FRAME (aka REVOLUTION UNTIL VICTORY) (2016)– as well as a selection of earlier films created during the revolutionary Palestinian film era, which have recently been restored as part of El-Hassan’s invaluable initiative, The Void Project, which was founded in 2018 to explore the presence and absence of the Palestinian visual archives as a discourse in narrative formation, and to restore and distribute some of the surviving films of the era.
ARCHIVES OF POWER ultimately strives to amplify the voices and stories that have been marginalized and suppressed, reclaiming agency and autonomy in defiance of ongoing attempts to erase Palestinian history and visual narrative. This program serves as an indispensable platform for comprehending and challenging the mechanisms of oppression and resistance within the domain of archival representation.
The Upper Gate (1991)
Produced by the Palestinian Liberation Organization
“When I returned to Sidon in 1983, it had just been occupied. My sister destroyed several documents in a panic because the Zionist soldiers were coming, and I lost many of my mementoes. Friends were killed, and places I had loved were destroyed. I wanted to capture memories that could not be destroyed. The city had survived, and many people I knew were still living there and taking stock of their losses. Actually, everyone in the documentary was someone I loved, and so the film was in many ways an extended form of my memory.” -Arab Loutfi
Arab Loutfi is a filmmaker, writer, and journalist. After working for many years on feature films with Mohammad Khan and Atef Altayeb,
she moved into the field of documentary filmmaking. Her first documentary, The Upper Gate, was an intensely personal account about Sidon, her hometown, in which she wove a history of the city through the stories of its people. Her second film, Jamila’s Mirror, dealt with the memories of Palestinian female guerrilla fighters, currently in their forties, who were involved in military operations during their teen years. Loufti's subsequent works in filmmaking were Seven Nights and a Dawn, Rango, and The Egyptian Wedding. She later created the films Short Visit; Stories from Gaza; Bird of Prudence; Playing with Democracy; Dark Room, Radiant Life; Tell Your Tale, Little Bird; and Over Their Dead Bodies. In all her works, she attempts to show that by simply taking just two steps out of the world inhabited by the middle class and intellectuals, she can finds a life in which people have their own music, cultural tastes, and passions. She has also sat as a jury member in many film festivals including the Dubai Film Festival, Al Jazeera Film Festival, Docudays Film Festival, Ismailia Film Festival, Documentarist Film Festival, Alexandria Short Film Festival, and others. She is an active member of the Arab Documentary Filmmakers Union, as well as the Egyptian Film Critics Union.
- Year1991
- Runtime90 minutes
- LanguageArabic
- CountryPalestine
- DirectorArab Loutfi
- ProducerPalestinian Liberation Organization