Nakba

NAKBA : arabic word meaning « disaster ». It describes the most tragic event in the history of Palestinian people, driven from their land during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

The movie was shot in an ancient palestinian refugee camp called « Ein El Sultan » and also in a jordanian military camp, both located near the city of Jericho in Cisjordania.

Ein El Sultan was initially built to give a shelter to the Palestinians thrown out of their lands and homes after the division of Palestine into two different countries : Israel and Palestine.
After the « Six-Day War » in 1967, Israel annexed Cisjordania. The inhabitants of the camp are forced to exile again to other refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria…

The ancient jordanian military base is occupied by the Israeli army and used as a training camp against the new kind of war emerging : the Intifada.

Like the archeologist, the movie deciphers the iconography of the signs engraved and fossilized on the walls, by scratching them in order to reveal their memory. Mankind always imprinted History on walls, leaving a visual heritage of his existence.
Later on, the refugee camp was totally destroyed. The Israeli army feared to see the camp becoming a symbol of resistance for the palestinian people.

“There is a thing stronger than all the arms of the world, it is an idea from which time came”
(Victor Hugo)

Film

I have spent many years in Israel and took my share in the Peace Movement "Shalom Akshav" for the recognition of a palestinian state. From my experience, I have been convinced that the major problem on the path of a real understanding of this situation remains the overflow of political speeches from both sides.

Thus, as a film director and painter, my challenge was to make a movie where the speech (the speaking, the voices) would be totally absent, charging the only visual with a mission to reveal reality and allow emotions to free themselves from rationality,and offer an aesthetic language appropiate to tell the sadness of an deracinated people.

Because of these personal choices, and the fact that most of the works done on this conflict choose the narrative-documentary style, I am aware that getting in this movie demands a participative effort.
I would like to thanks you for this prize and especially for your unused approach to understand this unconvencional film.

Can beauty express suffering? Only the author's honesty can reconcile thisparadox.
The symbolic freedom of experimental cinema prevails over the narration by desintegrating time and space a new language of abstraction inherent to the image is created,,this was my challenge.