Sat, 03.02.2024
18:00–19:00
Film projection
Syrena Cinema
Free admission

Screening of three films from the “Tokyo Reels” project by the Subversive Film collective and a meeting with Reem Shilleh

The Museum of Warsaw, along with the Museum of Modern Art, organizes a screening of three films from the 2022 “Tokyo Reels” project by the Subversive Film collective and a meeting with Reem Shilleh.

Subversive Film is a cinema research and production collective that aims to cast new light upon historic works related to Palestine and the region, to engender support for film preservation, and to investigate archival practices. Formed in 2011, Subversive Film is based between Ramallah and elsewhere.

‘Tokyo Reels’ project is a collection of twenty inventories of 16 mm film reels that constitute a collection kept and safeguarded by members of a Japanese Palestine solidarity group in Tokyo.

The films have been selected by Reem Shilleh, a member of the collective, and her commentary will precede the screening. As Shilleh writes:

Placing the current moment in the context of 75 years of colonial oppression and violence in Palestine, this programme looks at how cinema has historically been produced as part of liberation and emancipatory struggles and renders itself an instrument of bearing witness to a continued refusal of erasure.

The post-screening discussion will be led by Hanka Grupińska.

The event will be conducted in English.

Kuneitra: Death of a City

dir. Jim Cranmer, 1974, 26 min

Kuneitra: Death of a City was made by the American Peace Committee to document the UN-commissioned forensic investigation of the atrocities committed by the Israeli army in the town of Kuneitra in the occupied Golan Heights. Shots of the remnants of destruction of religious sites, graveyards and homes interlace interviews that were made with the town residents with their recollections of what had happened.

Scenes of the Occupation from Gaza

dir. Moustafa Abu Ali, 1973, 13 min

A rare film by the legendary filmmaker Mustafa Abu Ali, one of the founders of the Palestine Film Unit, the first filmic arm of the Palestinian revolution. Shot by a French news team, the footage was edited by Mustafa in Lebanon to produce one of the earliest films on the occupied territory in Gaza. Scenes of the Occupation from Gaza employs experimental editing techniques to produce a cinematically and politically subversive film.  The film won the prize as best film at the Damascus Film Festival in 1973 and was screened at multiple festivals. It was the only film produced by the Palestine Cinema Group, which in 1974 became the Palestine Cinema Institute.

Blown by the Wind

dir. Jacques Madvo, 1971, 18 min

A series of vibrant drawings illustrated by Palestinian children are brought to life in Blown By the Wind. The montage of still images provides a glimpse into the imagination, lives, and memories of these children following their displacement to Lebanon after the Six Day War in 1967. The film was officially selected for the Venice Film Festival and won awards at the Leipzig Film Festival, as well as in Czechoslovakia and Tunis.