Oum Ameen, a Palestinian grandmother, returns to her hometown Haifa through Google Streetview, today, the only way she can see Palestine.

Interview with Writer/Director/Producer Razan AlSalah

Congratulations! Why did you make your film?

I made my film to imagine what it would have been like for my grandmother to return home before she died. The film imagines her return to her hometown Haifa through Google Streetview, which today is the only way she can see Palestine. It's the only way I can access the land too; Palestinian refugees are restricted from returning to their ancestral homeland from which they are forcefully being displaced since 1948. My choice to use Google Streetview came out of necessity, but I soon realized that the Streetview landscape, its aesthetics and its mainstream use as a touristic tool of "location" consumption, inherently poses our the question of (dis)connection to place.

Your father was born 100 years old, and so was the Nakba

Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?

Watching experimental films is good for your mental health! They shift your mind, skew the way you look at the normal. This film will change the way you look at Google Streetview, at Palestine and filmmaking in general!

How do personal and universal themes work in your film?

The film won best short at Days of Cinema, Palestine 2017; this is what the jury said about the film:

"For its poetic, multi-layered, and exquisite execution both linguistically, and aesthetically a film which at once gives insight into a highly personal experience as well as a universal disposition of loss, injustice and distance..."

How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?

I started out by collecting the family's memory of their escape from Palestine. My grandparents have passed and my father was only three years old. His only memory of Haifa is riding his tiny bicycle on their balcony that overlooked the Mediterannean Sea. He gave his birth certificate and told me their house was on William Stanton Street. I couldn't locate that street on Maps, not to my surprise. I then found an archival image of a well: at the intersection of William Stanton Street (today Shivat Tsiyon) and Bourj Street. William Stanton is the first British General to colonize the city during the British Mandate. Shivat Tsiyon is "Return to Zion" in Hebrew and is the marker of Zionist colonization of the city that followed. Burj means "Tower" in Arabic and attests to the medieval urban history of the city that preceded both colonizations debunking the myth that settlers came to empty land and brought civilization.

On top of this rich history lied a well; I couldn't locate where my father was born and decided he was born in that well: a time worm hole of history, he was born a 100 years already in 1948 and so was the Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe and refers to the 1948 mass exodus of Palestinians from their homes and lands.) This well marked not only the birth of my father but of the filmmaking process itself: a tension between collection and recollection, creation and recreation, fiction and nonfiction..

What type of feedback have you received so far?

I've noticed it resonates with people from all around the world: especially people who have been displaced whether by the army of another nation or whether through gentrification, a lot of people today understand the feeling of losing home.

Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?

I wish! I'm still waiting for that intense conversation that challenges the film!

What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?

I'm happy with as many people as possible watching the film. I'm looking for festival, gallery and academic distribution and more media coverage!

What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?

How can history be told through personal stories?

What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?I'm developing a VR film with two French producers. We're applying to development funds!

Interview: May 2018

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We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela

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Your father was born 100 years old, and so was the Nakba

Oum Ameen, a Palestinian grandmother, returns to her hometown Haifa through Google Streetview, today, the only way she can see Palestine.

Length:

7 min

Director:

Razan AlSalah

Producer:
Razan AlSalah

Writer:
Razan AlSalah

About the writer, director and producer:

Razan is a filmmaker and media artist living and working between Canada, the US and Lebanon. She is the 2018 Knight Foundation New Frontier Fellow at Sundance Film Festival and was awarded the Barbara Aronofsky Latham Award for an Emerging Experimental Video Artist at the 2018 Ann Arbor Film Festival. Razan’s work has exhibited at HotDocs Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Blackstar Film Festival and is in the permanent collection of the Sursock Museum in her hometown Beirut, Lebanon. Her latest short film, "your father was born 100 years old, and so was the Nakba" won the Sunbird Award for Best Narrative Short at Days of Cinema Palestine 2018 and has been acquired by the Palestine Films Collection. Razan was a 3-year Fulbright scholar pursuing her MFA in Film and Media Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia where she now teaches both studies and lab courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels; she is also a mentor at the CAMRA Doc Fellows Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Key cast:

Razan AlSalah

Looking for (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists):

Looking for film festival directors and distributors

Social media handles:

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/YFWB100YO

Where can I watch it next and in the coming month?

Kinodot Festival, St Petersburg, Russia, June 2-3, 2018.