Film: Jerusalem – East Side Story
by Mohamad Alatar
Palestine 2008, 57 min,
Documentary, Arabic/Hebrew OmeU
Discussant:
Refqa Abu-Remaileh (Amman / EUME Fellow 2014-2016)
Curator: Viola Shafik
This event is part of the Arabic film series “Beyond Spring”, organized by Mayadin Al-Tahrir e.V., EUME and the Werkstatt der Kulturen.
Synopsis:
Because of its subject matter this film, completed in 2008, is still highly topical. From a Palestinian perspective it documents the most important historical phases since the foundation of the Israeli state. Since 1948 the Western part of Jerusalem has been controlled by Israel, since 1967 the Eastern side as well. Mohammed Alatar focuses on the effects Israel’s politics of occupation has on the inhabitants of the city of Jerusalem.
Refqa Abu-Remaileh received her DPhil and MSt in modern Middle Eastern Studies, with a focus on Arabic Literature and Film, from the University of Oxford (2010, 2004). Abu-Remaileh worked with the Oxford Research Group’s Middle East Programme, a conflict-resolution organization focusing on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. She created a new strategic thinking group involving Palestinian citizens of Israel. In 2012-13 she was a EUME fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin and continues her work with a project on “Resistance and Subversion in Palestinian Literature and Film” as a EUME Fellow from 2014-2016 with a scholarship of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung.