Filming on Palestinian-American filmmaker Cherien Dabis’ upcoming feature All That’s Left Of You in Jaffa, the mixed city just south of Tel Aviv in Israel, has been disrupted by the ongoing conflict in the region.
Dabis was on a tech recce in Jaffa for her third feature, a historical drama chronicling one Palestinian family over three generations, when the October 7 Hamas attacks took place, sparking Israeli retaliation in Gaza.
“We had to evacuate all of our foreign crew,” Dabis told Screen. We had to evacuate all of our foreign crew,” Dabis told
Screen
. The tensions were high the first few days before we evacuated. It was terrifying.”
Some members of her European crew immediately evacuated while others stayed for a few days in the hope that the situation would deescalate. Dabis said, “We had been preparing for months and we were so close.” “Leaving was one of the hardest and saddest things. The filmmaker and her team moved to Cyprus to begin production on certain segments of the film. “We are scrambling now to shoot this section of the film and then return back to Palestine once things have calmed down. It’s hard to focus on anything else than what’s going on. Our hearts are heavy.” Tony and Jiries of Fresco Films are the local Palestinian producers. The film was to be shot in five different cities in the region, including Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jaffa, and Cyprus. Dabis said, “When everything happened for the first time, everyone was shocked.” “We were only two weeks away from filming.” “I had no idea what a prescient film it would be,” she said. She has also directed episodes of Ramy, Ozark
, and
The Sinner
.
Palestinian cinema0 “The timing could not be more important for this movie and the crew and I feel an incredible sense of urgency to make this film about a family and what happens to them over generations of displacement and dispossession.”Dabis’ first feature Amreeka, about the immigrant experience of a Palestinian mother-son duo in the US, premiered in Sundance and Cannes in 2009 followed by May In The Summer
, which premiered at Sundance’s opening night in 2013.She earned an Emmy best director nomination in 2022 for Disney series Only Murders In The Building and has also directed episodes of Ramy, Ozark, and The Sinner
.
Palestinian cinemaThe ongoing unrest is continuding to shake up productions in the region including Oscar-nominated Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir’s All Before You
, a retelling of the 1930s farmer-led revolt against British colonial rule in Palestine produced by Philistine Films.The Salt Of This Sea, When I Saw You, Wajib and The Oblivion Theory
director posted an image of herself surrounded by her film crew to her Instagram page on Octoberr 14, confirming they were safe, but adding no further details on their location or future production plans.
Jacir wrote, “Our team is OK. She wrote, “Our team is OK.” We are angry, sad, terrified, and horrified. We are all feeling strong. The Palestine Cinema Days festival that was scheduled to run from October 24-November 1 has also been cancelled. Organisers said, “Filmlab Palestine has decided to postpone its 10th edition of Palestine Cinema Days indefinitely.”
The Palestine Film Institute has launched an initiative called Unprovoked Narratives, a series of films about Gaza which is screening online for free.
Palestinian cinema was honoured over the weekend when Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberias won the Grierson Award in Documentary Competition at the BFI London Film Festival. Palestine’s submission for the best feature film Oscar is Lina Soualem’s intimate portrait about her mother Hiam and four generations Palestinian women. After world-premiering at Venice the film has made stops at TIFF and Germany’s DOK Leipzig and just screened at Chicago International Film Festival (October 16).
Soualem told Screen of the film’s world tour, “Audiences have really connected to this film everywhere. The intimate stories told by the women in my family echo those of the Palestinians. Our films will always be there to remember us, even when we don’t have a clue what tomorrow will bring.
