Palestine through Film

Michel Khleifi, FERTILE MEMORY (1980, 99 min., Arabic with English subtitles)

Michel Khleifi’s feature debut, FERTILE MEMORY, is a landmark in Palestinian cinema. It was the first full-length film shot in the occupied West Bank by a Palestinian director and the first Palestinian film to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Neither a documentary nor a work of fiction, the film blends elements of both to craft a portrait of two very different women: Farah Hatoum, a fifty-year-old widow living with her children and grandchildren in Nazareth, and Sahar Khalifeh, a divorced novelist and young mother living in the West Bank. Despite their differing circumstances and histories, Farah and Sahar represent two sides of the same story: that of Palestinian women caught between the memory of their lost homeland and the reality of the encroaching Zionist occupation.

Palestine through Film chronicles key moments in Palestinian history—from the Nakba of 1948 to the present occupation. These weekly screenings of documentaries, historical dramas, and shorts open a window onto the mosaic of life in Palestine.