Thirteenth International Conference on The Arts in Society

Abstract

In Palestinian Cinema, Gertz, and Khleifi address the predicament of Palestinians as, on the one hand, a people that “history has forgotten” and on the other as a people that have “overlooked history.” This sense of being outside history, of being in a constant search for home, for continuity, is often the subject of many films about the Palestinian experience. Often this search for identity occurs under a variety of conditions of violence: the silent violence of occupation, the violence of living in exile outside one’s homeland, violence that erupts when engaging in protests, violence within the familial unit, and violence when youth on both sides of the political and ideological divide desire to come together. In this discussion I explore select recent documentary and feature films both by Palestinian filmmakers and by filmmakers from other countries as well as joint productions by Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers that present a variety of aspects of the conflict to show how Palestinians and Israelis go about living daily life in the midst of conflicting positions. Some of the filmmakers include Elia Suleiman, Lorraine Levy, Hany Abu Assad, and Emad Burnat. My discussion will contrast the filmic representations with how violence in relation to citizenship and identity is presented in graphic texts by Joe Sacco, namely Palestine and Footnotes to Gaza to extend understanding of how other genres besides film give expression to these issues during different phases of the conflict.