By Faizal Khan
Cannes, May 18 (UNI) Six months after a ceasefire came into effect in Gaza last year, Palestinian filmmakers are creating new works to narrate the destruction of their land and society. One of such films is inspired by an Oscar-nominated Indian documentary.
'Azziza: In a Cherished Land', a new feature film directed by Ramallah-based Tareq Khalaf has taken inspiration from Delhi-born filmmaker Shaunak Sen's documentary 'All That Breathes', which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2023.
"I watched Shaunak Sen's 'All That Breathes' 30 times," says Khalaf, a trained architect and filmmaker. "It is the inspiration for my film," he adds.
'Azziza: In a Cherished Land', which is currently in post-production, tells the story of a young Palestinian man who returns to West Bank from the United States and takes sanctuary in a farm owned by his grandmother's sister, Azziza.
An autobiographical film, 'Azziza: In a Cherished Land' is about the young Palestinian man's way of living in his homeland by observing his grandmother's sister's determination to continue her links with Palestine through farming in their ancestral land.
"Both 'All That Breathes' and 'Azziza: In a Cherished Land' talk about urban ecologies," explains Khalaf about the inspiration behind his project. "I became interested in the artistic structure and the amazing interludes in Sen's documentary. The narrative power of the characters in 'All That Breathes', the cousins who are caring for injured black kites in Delhi, influenced me strongly," he adds.
"Just like the basement hospital where the black kites are treated in 'All That Breathes', my film talks about the reality of space that Azziza lives in. Her world is the sound of a village, a city and her farm like that of the characters in Shaunak Sen's film," says Khalaf, who studied architecture in Cape Town, South Africa.
'Azziza: In a Cherished Land' is about the disappearance of the agrarian way of living because of the destruction of land in the war in Gaza by Israel. Living in Washington as a Palestinian immigrant, Khalaf returned to West Bank in Palestine in 2016 to live with his grandmother and her sister in Ramallah.
"When I returned in 2016 I discovered that only my grandmother and her sister remained in our family. My film also explores what remains of a once large, extended Palestinian family in our homeland," says the director.
"My grandmother's sister continued farming in our ancestral land. The film is her story, structured around seasons and the agrarian calendar," says Khalaf, whose research as an architect centres on urbanism and the disappearance of agrarian livelihoods and rooted forms of belonging.
Khalaf uses his first feature film to socially engage with art and sculpture to address geographic fragmentation and the alienating impacts of settler colonial violence in Palestine.
With experience working in both Palestine and South Africa, he seeks to explore settler ecologies and create new collaborative narratives across southern regions through cinema.
The 85-minute film is one of the several new feature film and documentary projects seeking funds and co-producers in the Marche du Film, the film market of the ongoing 79th Cannes Film Festival.
Celebrated Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi is mentoring the new Palestinian film projects supported by the Ramallah-based Palestine Film Institute.
'Azziza: In a Cherished Land' is expected to have a theatrical release in October this year.
'All That Breathes', which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States in 2022, won the Golden Eye Award for Best Documentary at the Cannes Film Festival in the same year, before winning nomination for Best Documentary Feature for the 2023 Oscar Awards.
The Cannes Film Festival, which opened on May 12, will conclude on May 23.
UNI XC RN