Palestinian Cinema: Landscape, Trauma, and Memory

Although in recent years the entire world has been increasingly concerned with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there are few truly reliable sources of information about Palestinian society and culture. One of the best sources for understanding Palestinian culture is the cinema, which has strived to delineate Palestinian history and to portray the daily lives of Palestinian men, women, and children. Here, an Israeli and a Palestinian scholar, in a rare and welcome collaboration, follow the development of Palestinian cinema, commenting on its response to political and social transformations. They reveal that the more that social, political, and economic conditions have worsened and chaos and pain prevail, the more Palestinian cinema has engaged with the national struggle.

Nurith Gertz is Professor of Cinema and Literature at the Open University and Professor and Head of the Program in Theory and History in the Department of Cinema and Television at Tel Aviv University. Her numerous books include Myths in Israeli Culture and Not From Here. She lives in Jerusalem.

George Khleifi is a Palestinian filmmaker and Deputy Director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University, Ramallah. He is the author of numerous articles on Palestinian cinema. He lives in Nazareth.