Frames of Resistance: Palestinian Solidarity
This past week, Cinema for Gaza announced an online auction in support of the organization Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP). The auction, which launches on April 2nd, features gifts and experiences from actors Tilda Swinton, Brian Cox, Ramy Youssef, among others. All the proceeds will go towards MAP.
Cinema for Gaza isn’t the first effort within cinema to support Palestine. In the last few months, the cinema community has seen a number of efforts by filmmakers, producers, distributors, and critics to bring attention to the genocide in Gaza. As a member of the Chicago Palestine Film Festival, it’s been wonderful seeing solidarity in so many different domains. The Chicago Palestine Film Festival is entering its 23rd year this year, and it’s the longest running Palestine film festival in the world. I started my work with the festival at the end of 2022: I was slowly starting to realize my love for film, and I wanted to do something related to it. I started volunteering, and the rest is history.
Through this, I realized how much film has to offer Palestine, and just how much cinema can carry the work we do as we continue to chant, pray, and fight for a ceasefire and liberation. Film is the most spiritual experience you can get out of art — that’s what I believe at least. There’s a sort of submission to a film and its power that’s hard to experience with other art; you have to meet a film on its own terms as you let it guide you for two to three hours. No matter how hard hearted you might be, it’s hard not to let a film move you. I hope that our festival, among others, can amplify the work of Palestinians — both in Palestine and diaspora — to bring this art to everyone.
Just to briefly survey some of these efforts: Pro-Palestine protestors shut down Sunset Boulevard in LA on the day of the Oscars. Jonathan Glazer accepted his Oscar with a mention of the atrocities in Gaza. In January of this year, Film Workers for Palestine published an open letter demanding a ceasefire, with over six thousand signatories in the film industry.
I’m glad that people are finally paying attention to Palestinian cinema, that they’re finally caring. But it should not have taken a genocide, for all this loss of life for people to finally cry out. The Palestinian ‘issue’ is only an issue in that the plight, suffering, and oppression of the Palestinians has been ignored for so long. I hope that these efforts serve as the catalyst for further change, but I know that when history vindicates Palestine, even those of whose who did all we could will look back in shame.
I want to be clear: Palestinian film is important, but not because it humanizes Palestinians. How far has humanizing Palestinians gotten us? People have consciously ignored their humanity for the better part of a century. If film has a power in spite of this banal evil, it is to compound and amplify the Palestinian voice and resistance. Palestine must be omnipresent. Posters, talks, lectures, protests, shutdown streets, social media posts, media, and film — every facet of life must speak to the vitality and importance of the Palestinian cause, because that’s the only way we can gain ground for liberation.
