Palestine through Film

Amer Shomali and Paul Cowan, THE WANTED 18 (2014, 75 min., Arabic, English, and Hebrew with English subtitles)

This award-winning animated documentary tells the absurd but true story of eighteen fugitive cows pursued by the Israeli army during the First Intifada. In 1988, as a form of nonviolent protest, a small collective from Beit Sahour purchased a herd of milk cows and launched a local dairy industry. When it was determined that these eighteen cows posed a threat to Israeli national security, the townspeople hid them from hundreds of soldiers and military helicopters deployed to find them. Narrated by claymation cows, THE WANTED 18 humorously refuses to legitimize the increasingly absurd discourses of “securitization.” As film critic Jay Weissberg writes, “Such a cleverly subversive act deserves a cleverly subversive mode of cinematic expression, and Cowan and Shomali deliver the goods via delightful animated segments in which the cows themselves tell their story” (Variety—full review here).

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.