Cinema on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.(Editorial)

For a national cinema from a nation that has yet to achieve independent statehood, and that presently sustains a devastated civil infrastructure, Palestinian cinema has miraculously survived. One might even say that Palestinian cinema has actually prospered in recent years, despite the seemingly insurmountable odds facing filmmakers who have been working in a "film industry" with no studios, limited funding sources, few skilled technicians, and no film schools.

Although some of the most talented Palestinian filmmakers have been honored at recent international film festivals, the response to their films in America always seems fraught with politically sensitive considerations. When in 2002 Palestine tried to submit Ella Suleiman's Divine Intervention as its nominee for the Academy Award for "Best Foreign Language Film," the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rejected the film, stating, "Palestine is not a country." Embarrassed by the attendant controversy, the Academy belatedly accepted the film's nomination the following year, explaining that it would "make an exception," as they had done in the past for entries from Taiwan and Hong Kong. By 2006, when Hany Abu-Assad's Paradise Now was accepted as a nominee in the best foreign film category, the Academy identified the presenting country as "the Palestinian Authority."

From our earliest issues, Cineaste has frequently published coverage of Palestinian cinema, from an early discussion with members of the Palestinian Cinema Association, to numerous articles and reviews, and interviews with contemporary Palestinian filmmakers. Nana Asfour's article in this issue, "Reclaiming Palestine, One Film at a Time," continues in this tradition by reviewing a number of new and recently published books on Palestinian cinema, examining key themes in contemporary Palestinian filmmaking, in particular the fervent desire to maintain and develop a sense of Palestinian national identity, to define what it means to be a Palestinian today, during a period when the very existence of the country and its populace is being seriously threatened. Films such as Elia Suleiman's Divine Intervention, a black comedy about life under the Israeli Occupation, Abu-Assad's Paradise Now, a controversial drama exploring the psychology of suicide bombers, and Rashid Masharawi's Laila's Birthday (to be released in the U.S. this summer), about life in contemporary Ramallah as seen through the eyes of a former Palestinian doctor turned taxi driver, reflect "the constant struggle for Palestinian cinema," as Hamid Dabashi explains, "to strike a balance between the personal and the political."

A paradox of the debate over Middle East politics is that more outspokenly critical coverage of Israeli policy can be found in a liberal Israeli newspaper such as Haaretz ...