Palestine in the Eye

Producer: Palestinian Liberation Organization

Country:

Palestine in the Eye chronicles the profound impact of Hani Jawharieh’s death for the PLO Film Unit. The film reflects on his life through interviews with family, colleagues, and his own cinematography, including the moment of his death while filming for the Unit in 1976. Although the film has later been attributed to Mustafa Abu Ali, the Unit’s method of work was to describe everyone as a collective of “workers,” and we see this in the film titles, which collectively list the names of all those who participated as a non-hierarchical collective. Through this reflection on Jawharieh, we are offered an understanding of the workings of the Palestine Film Unit and its international connections.

Mustafa Abu Ali
Mustafa Abu Ali was a Palestinian filmmaker. Abu Ali studied at the University of California-Berkeley in the 1960s before studying cinema in London, graduating in 1967. He is considered one of the founders of Palestinian cinema, and the Palestinian Cinema Association in Beirut in 1973, (re-established in Ramallah in 2004). Along with Sulafa Jadallah and Hani Jowharieh, he established the Palestine Film Unit (PFU)–which saw its primary task as “documenting the revolution and creating an archive of images of historical documents”. After the PLO’s move to Lebanon after the events of Black September, the PFU was renamed the Palestine Cinema Institute and became one of the seven departments of the PLO’s Unified Media. Abu Ali headed the department from 1973 to 1975. Abu Ali wrote four screenplays and directed more than 30 films, for which he won more than 14 awards, the most recent from the 2003 Ismailia Film Festival.

Mustafa Abu Ali

Mustafa Abu Ali was a Palestinian filmmaker. Abu Ali studied at the University of California-Berkeley in the 1960s before studying cinema in London, graduating in 1967. He is considered one of the founders of Palestinian cinema, and the Palestinian Cinema Association in Beirut in 1973, (re-established in Ramallah in 2004). Along with Sulafa Jadallah and Hani Jowharieh, he established the Palestine Film Unit (PFU)--which saw its primary task as "documenting the revolution and creating an archive of images of historical documents". After the PLO's move to Lebanon after the events of Black September, the PFU was renamed the Palestine Cinema Institute and became one of the seven departments of the PLO's Unified Media. Abu Ali headed the department from 1973 to 1975. Abu Ali wrote four screenplays and directed more than 30 films, for which he won more than 14 awards, the most recent from the 2003 Ismailia Film Festival.

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