Palestinian Identity

Palestine, Lebanon | 1984 | 38 min | Documentary In the year 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon and occupied its capital Beirut. The film is a rare example of a PLO film made after their departure from Beirut. It documents the burnt and destroyed cultural and educational centres from which Israelis stole films, photographs, historical and contemporary manuscripts. It includes interviews with key members of the Palestinian cultural scene such as Mahmoud Darwish, Ismail Shammout and those in charge of cultural and educational centres such as Anni Khanafani to present a sophisticated intellectual understanding of why Israel focused on the destruction of Palestinian culture and represents Palestinian determination to flourish on an artistic level and resist the attempts at cultural genocide. A film by Kassem Hawal Kassem Hawal (b. 1940, Basra) is an Iraqi filmmaker currently residing in the Netherlands. He studied acting and theater making at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad. In 1970, he traveled to Lebanon and Syria where he started making political films with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Hawal has directed twenty-eight documentaries and five feature films.