IMAGES HIJACKING SCREENS FOR LIBERATION
Snapshots Reflecting Palestine (1973-2023)
Since 1969, striking iconographic imagery of the liberation of Palestine has emerged from the Palestinian resistance. From the hijacking of airplanes to the live-streaming of the Al-Aqsa flood, these images become instruments that seize newspaper headlines, media screens, and trends on social media platforms to work for the Palestinian cause. They fuel the hearts of international solidarity for liberation.
During the Cold War (1968-1982) when international solidarity between the developing world and the Palestinian cause grew, Palestinian filmmakers in collaboration with different arms of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) were producing militant films destined for resistance fighters in military camps, families in refugee camps, international solidarity campaigns, progressive political organizations, activists and finally, Arab and third-world solidarity film festivals and forums. Today and since October 2023, we can witness a similar trend with regards to content creators and filmmakers from Gaza whose imagery continues to interrupt Instagram’s rigidly controlled algorithms. Their content reveals the horrors of the Palestinian struggle for survival and an unfolding Genocide, which in turn, has led to the building of spontaneous and self-organized solidarity campaigns all over the world.
IMAGES HIJACKING SCREENS FOR LIBERATION, is a film program consisting of three restored works from the film archives of the International Solidarity era and three contemporary works from post-Oslo era to the present. The program includes Mustafa Abu Ali, Basma al-Sharif, Arab Loutfi, Sami Al Salamoni, Mary Jirmanus Saba, and Tareq Rantisi. It explores the contexts NGOization, donor political economy, the ideologies of human rights and contemporary art and the return of the humanitarian gaze within a dominant global economy.
IMAGES HIJACKING SCREENS FOR LIBERATION is curated by Ali Hussein AlAdawy and is presented by ArteEast. This program is part of the legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, which preserves and presents 20 years of film and video programming by ArteEast. The full program will be screened online on artearchive.org from October 11 - 25.
Assassinated Lebanese intellectual Mahdi Amel — often dubbed “the Arab Gramsci” — famously said: “He who resists is never defeated.” What use is his thought to us today, and what is our responsibility as image makers to Gaza?
About the Filmmaker:
Tareq Rantisi is a Grammy-nominated world percussionist, composer, and educator. He has performed and recorded with some of the biggest names in modern music including Luciana Souza, Aaron Goldberg, Jon Batiste, and as a member of Danilo Perez’s Global Messengers. Tareq began studying music while teaching in Palestinian refugee camps and community centers in the West Bank and Jerusalem. He joined other educators in 2011 to found the Edward Said Conservatory in Gaza, Gaza’s first music school. Tareq’s artistic practice engages with Arabic, Jazz, Afro-Cuban, Indian, West African, Brazilian, and embracing deep study of folk traditions evident in his debut album A’hajeez (Jafra Productions 2024).
Mary Jirmanus Saba is a geographer who uses film and other media to explore the histories of labor movement in the Arab world and its connections to Latin America, feminist internationalism, and new transformative possibilities. Her feature debut A Feeling Greater Than Love won the FIPRESCI Critics Prize at the 2017 Berlinale Forum and went on to play hundreds of festivals, galleries, and community spaces — including Palestine solidarity encampments. Mary is a member of the Frantz Fanon Cultural Fund, the UAW Arab Caucus and the People’s CDC.
- Year2023
- Runtime14 minutes
- LanguageEnglish, Arabic
- CountryPalestine
- Subtitle LanguageEnglish
IMAGES HIJACKING SCREENS FOR LIBERATION
Snapshots Reflecting Palestine (1973-2023)
Since 1969, striking iconographic imagery of the liberation of Palestine has emerged from the Palestinian resistance. From the hijacking of airplanes to the live-streaming of the Al-Aqsa flood, these images become instruments that seize newspaper headlines, media screens, and trends on social media platforms to work for the Palestinian cause. They fuel the hearts of international solidarity for liberation.
During the Cold War (1968-1982) when international solidarity between the developing world and the Palestinian cause grew, Palestinian filmmakers in collaboration with different arms of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) were producing militant films destined for resistance fighters in military camps, families in refugee camps, international solidarity campaigns, progressive political organizations, activists and finally, Arab and third-world solidarity film festivals and forums. Today and since October 2023, we can witness a similar trend with regards to content creators and filmmakers from Gaza whose imagery continues to interrupt Instagram’s rigidly controlled algorithms. Their content reveals the horrors of the Palestinian struggle for survival and an unfolding Genocide, which in turn, has led to the building of spontaneous and self-organized solidarity campaigns all over the world.
IMAGES HIJACKING SCREENS FOR LIBERATION, is a film program consisting of three restored works from the film archives of the International Solidarity era and three contemporary works from post-Oslo era to the present. The program includes Mustafa Abu Ali, Basma al-Sharif, Arab Loutfi, Sami Al Salamoni, Mary Jirmanus Saba, and Tareq Rantisi. It explores the contexts NGOization, donor political economy, the ideologies of human rights and contemporary art and the return of the humanitarian gaze within a dominant global economy.
IMAGES HIJACKING SCREENS FOR LIBERATION is curated by Ali Hussein AlAdawy and is presented by ArteEast. This program is part of the legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, which preserves and presents 20 years of film and video programming by ArteEast. The full program will be screened online on artearchive.org from October 11 - 25.
Assassinated Lebanese intellectual Mahdi Amel — often dubbed “the Arab Gramsci” — famously said: “He who resists is never defeated.” What use is his thought to us today, and what is our responsibility as image makers to Gaza?
About the Filmmaker:
Tareq Rantisi is a Grammy-nominated world percussionist, composer, and educator. He has performed and recorded with some of the biggest names in modern music including Luciana Souza, Aaron Goldberg, Jon Batiste, and as a member of Danilo Perez’s Global Messengers. Tareq began studying music while teaching in Palestinian refugee camps and community centers in the West Bank and Jerusalem. He joined other educators in 2011 to found the Edward Said Conservatory in Gaza, Gaza’s first music school. Tareq’s artistic practice engages with Arabic, Jazz, Afro-Cuban, Indian, West African, Brazilian, and embracing deep study of folk traditions evident in his debut album A’hajeez (Jafra Productions 2024).
Mary Jirmanus Saba is a geographer who uses film and other media to explore the histories of labor movement in the Arab world and its connections to Latin America, feminist internationalism, and new transformative possibilities. Her feature debut A Feeling Greater Than Love won the FIPRESCI Critics Prize at the 2017 Berlinale Forum and went on to play hundreds of festivals, galleries, and community spaces — including Palestine solidarity encampments. Mary is a member of the Frantz Fanon Cultural Fund, the UAW Arab Caucus and the People’s CDC.
- Year2023
- Runtime14 minutes
- LanguageEnglish, Arabic
- CountryPalestine
- Subtitle LanguageEnglish