The first period: The beginning, 1935–1948 waiting for an open-air film show, around 1940 The first Palestinian film to be made is generally believed to be a documentary on King
Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia's visit in 1935 to
Mandatory Palestine, made by Ibrahim Hassan Sirhan (or Serhan), based in
Jaffa. Sirhan followed the King and around Mandatory Palestine, "from
Lod to
Jaffa and from Jaffa to
Tel Aviv". The result was a
silent movie that was presented at the
Nabi Rubin festivals. Following this documentary, Sirhan joined Jamal al-Asphar to produce a 45-minute film called
The Realized Dreams, aiming to "promote the orphans' cause". Sirhan and al-Asphar also produced a documentary about
Ahmad Hilmi Pasha, a member of the
Higher Arab Commission. In 1945 Sirhan established the Arab Film Company with Ahmad Hilmi al-Kilani. The company launched the feature film
Holiday Eve, which was followed by preparations for the next film
A Storm at Home. The films themselves were lost in 1948, when Sirhan had to flee Jaffa after the town was bombarded.
The second period: The epoch of silence, 1948–1967 The
1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight (known in Arabic as the
Nakba) had a devastating effect on Palestinian society, including its nascent film industry. Cinematic endeavours, requiring infrastructure, professional crews, and finance, nearly ceased for two decades. Individual Palestinian participated in the film-production of neighbouring countries. It is reported that Sirhan was involved with the production of the first Jordanian feature film,
The Struggle in Jarash (1957), and another Palestinian, Abdallah Ka'wash, directed the second Jordanian feature film,
My Homeland, My Love, in 1964.
The third period: Cinema in exile, 1968–1982 After 1967, Palestinian cinema found itself under the auspices of the
PLO, funded by
Fatah and other Palestinian organisations like
PFLP and
DFLP. More than 60 films were made in this period, mostly documentaries. The first film festival dedicated to Palestinian films was held in
Baghdad in 1973, and Baghdad also hosted the next two Palestinian film festivals, in 1976 and 1980.
Mustafa Abu Ali was one of the early Palestinian film directors, and he helped found the Palestinian Cinema Association in
Beirut in 1973. Only one dramatic movie was made during the period, namely
Return to Haifa in 1982, an adaptation of a short novel by
Ghassan Kanafani.
The film archives disappearance, 1982 Different organisations set up
archives for Palestinian films. The largest such archive was run by
PLO's Film Foundation/Palestinian Film Unit. In 1982, when the PLO was forced out of
Beirut, the archive was put into storage (in the Red Crescenty Hospital), from where it "disappeared" under circumstances which are still unclear. Recently, several films from the archive were located in the
Israel Defense Forces Archive in
Tel HaShomer by scholar and curator Rona Sela. Sela has called for the release of these films, and for the declassification of other Palestinian films that remain closed in the
IDF Archive.
The fourth period: The return home, from 1980 to the present In 1987, there was the first Intifada, and it became the first Palestinian movie to receive national release in the United States. A break-out film for its genre, it won a New Director's Prize at the
Seattle International Film Festival and a
Luigi De Laurentiis Award at the
Venice Film Festival. Notable film directors of this period include
Michel Khleifi,
Rashid Masharawi,
Ali Nassar and
Elia Suleiman. An international effort was launched in 2008 to reopen
Cinema Jenin, a cinema located in the
Jenin Refugee Camp. In 2008, three Palestinian feature films and an estimated eight shorts were completed, more than ever before. In 2010,
Hamas, the governing authority in the
Gaza Strip, announced the completion of a new film. Titled
The Great Liberation, the film depicts the destruction of Israel by Palestinians. Currently in the Gaza Strip, all film projects must be approved by Hamas' Culture Ministry before they can be screened in public. Independent filmmakers have claimed that the Culture Ministry cracks down on content not conforming to Hamas edicts. In a notable 2010 case, Hamas banned the short film
Something Sweet, directed by Khalil al-Muzzayen, which was submitted at the
Cannes Film Festival. Hamas banned it from being shown locally due to a four-second scene where a woman is shown with her hair uncovered. In 2011, a film festival hosted by the Gaza Women's Affairs Center included documentaries and fictional pieces on women's issues, but the Culture Ministry censored numerous scenes. One film had to remove a scene where a woman lowered one shoulder of her dress, and another had to remove a scene of a man swearing. Films from Palestine have been broadcast internationally through services such as
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