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Accepted Paper
Paper short abstract
I here explore potential global partnerships to restore and protect Palestinian cinema, within complex dynamics of international archiving. Retracing, restoring and protecting Palestinian cinema is challenged by the circumstances of occupation and conflict, which exacerbate questions of ownership
Paper long abstract
Envisioning a research on Palestinian film archives, the questions are different than in other cinemas' contexts. Since the 1970s the intangible rich heritage of the Palestinian cinema has been dispersed, with archives systematically pillaged and obliterated by the Israeli state and military, resulting in the loss of invaluable records of Palestinian history and resistance. With villages destroyed, libraries and documentation centres looted and archives appropriated by Israeli forces, reclaiming history has become a mission and a mantra for Palestinian intellectuals and activists (Dabbagh, 2020). For the oppressed, archives are not just passive collections of documents, but they are active sites of resistance and struggle. (Rana 2025) The process of archiving itself becomes a dynamic act of defying control and geographical confinement. (ibidem).
Rana (2025) argues how the global solidarity with Palestinians helped preserve copies of lost films, functioning as insurgent archives especially as the Israeli occupation not only attempts to shape the history of Palestinians but also tries to dictate how the present will be remembered. (Rana 2025). Here are the key issues for this research: 1. retrace the archive, find the films, assessing restitution and ownership. 2. Investigating potential global partnership to find, restore, protect and relaunch archive Palestinian Cinema; 3. Engage creativity for further creating alliances and interest in the archive. As Dabbagh asks (2020), ‘when the past has been subjected to a systematic process of erasure, how can artists, writers, historians, politicians, educators and activists in Palestine (and beyond, I would add) creatively address it?
Blurring boundaries between anthropology, cinema, arts and performance in a multimodal multi-sited visual anthropology.
Session 1 Friday 4 July, 2025, -