Mai Masri - Frontiers of Dreams and Fears (2001)

Frontiers of Dreams and Fears (2001, Mai Masri)

As Southern Lebanon is liberated from Israel, Palestinian refugees from the Beirut and Bethlehem camps meet after 52 years watch on the Palestine Film Institute site, Mai Masri's vimeo, or netflix

‘Children of Shatila’ (Lebanon, 1998) film by Mai Masri. Final scene where the children of the camp are asked in a workshop how they would paint Palestine.

"Children of Shatila opens with 1982 archive footage of Israeli war planes over Beirut, flames rising from the city, tanks moving inexorably towards Shatila, long panning shots over heaps of dead bodies of people, and a downed white horse, lines of heartbroken grieving women, men in face masks digging burial preparations. That was the history the children in the film never saw for themselves, but know in great detail from family and community lore. One boy talks with complete composure of how the bulldozers in the neighbourhood scooped up bodies of Palestinians and Lebanese together in death as they had been in life, and then, how his own aunt died, “Her head was cut off.” Mai’s technique is very rarely to use interviews, but rather to keep the camera running as ordinary life goes on with people talking, especially children, who have just got used to her being a part of it. Scenes in a classroom, in a family dinner, running through the alleys, jokes and games unfold so naturally that the viewer is in Shatila, not watching from the outside. There is truth conveyed in this seemingly effortless work method (which is in fact the fruit of a great investment of time and of listening skills) that could never be achieved in a traditional interview with all its opportunities for reflection before and cutting afterwards making for a confected product.

Children of Shatila shows a crowd of children watching boys’ and girls’ groups dancing the traditional dabka with everyone clapping along. Mai brought them a new game. She is glimpsed giving a small digital camera to one of the children, and the film begins to show the images and footage of one child after another as they turn the camera on the scene, on each other, even on her, and watch the images on the small screen with absolute wonder.

Children interview each other on film and tell each other their dreams of being grown up, how they will be doctors, engineers, spacemen, and how they will get their houses in Palestine back. Again, their own footage is shown as part of the film. They move through the camp as a group and one girl asks a very old neighbour sitting in the dusty alley outside his home what it had been like leaving Palestine, and what would he do first if he went back. “We were a wretched lot – barefoot,” he tells them of his family’s flight to Lebanon in 1948, before going on to say he would first rebuild his house on returning, then look after the land and the olive trees. He leans forward to speak intently into their camera as he tells the children to promise him that even if it takes 100 years or more they will never forget Palestine. This is the history that all of them know as well as if they have lived it themselves and which we see reflected in all the painting, poetry and dreams that fill the children’s lives."

Text by Victoria Brittain, author of Love and Resistance in the Films of Mai Masri. Published by Palgrave Macmillan 2020

(x, x, x)

Suspended Dreams (1992 / Jean Khalil Chamoun, Mai Masri)

Women in Film Challenge 2022: [35/52] 3000 Nights, dir. Mai Masri (Palestine/France/Jordan/Lebanon/Qatar/UAE, 2015)

Darkness of prison unfold / We fear not the night

EPISODE 010: Translations of Memory: The Films of Palestinian Cinema (Part One)

Understanding the history of Palestinian cinema begins with an understanding of its positioning in survival through decades of war and the diaspora of its culture. The events of the "Nakba", which sought the displacement and dispossession of an entire Palestinian nation, in 1948 set a paradigm of violence against Palestinians and the sovereignty of their land. Many of these tragic events, and those that took place leading, were captured by filmmakers alongside the birth of celluloid film technology, however, many of these films remain either lost or destroyed to this day. Film historians, and many Palestinian filmmakers, can identify Palestinian cinema through its four periods that are divided by significant markers of social change. 

In Part One of Episode 010: Translations of Memory: The Films of Palestinian Cinema, we look into the signifying factors that shifted the first and second waves of Palestinian Cinema. Palestinian cinema is most recognized for its resistance to settler occupational forces that debilitated decades of independent productions, while its nation of people struggled to crystallize its unity and cultural homogeny, as much of its historical films were lost, and thus only exist today through memory and re-distributed by oral storytelling. 

 LA CINEASTE invites you to visit our Patreon where you can find exclusive content and written materials found in our film essays. Our Patreon also offers tiers that you can contribute to monthly. 

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 Thank you for watching!

3000 Nights (2015) dir. Masri Mai

3000 nights (2015) dir. mai masri

"I always watch the news to find out if anyone was killed or injured. I'm afraid of seeing your name. I wonder what you are doing. I'm very excited and anxious, too. I never liked watching the news, but now I watch it all the time."

Frontiers of Dreams and Fears, 2001. Dir. Mai Masri.

Jean Khalil Chamoun & Mai Masri - Wild Flowers: Women of South Lebanon (1987)

If “The Mummy” (1999) was made today:

1) Dylan O’Brien as Rick O’Connell

2) Rosaline Elbay as Evelyn Carnahan

3) Amir El-Masry as Jonathan Carnahan

4) Mena Massoud as Ardeth Bay

5) Rami Malek as Imhotep

6) May Calamawy as Anck su Namun

(before anyone comments, Evy and Jonathan are canonically half-Egyptian)

Pieces of media to watch to educate yourself on Palestine’s long history of suffering from the zionist Israeli occupation :

“Jenin, Jenin” a documentary by Mohammad Bakri (available on Youtube)

“200 meters” a movie by Ameen Nayfeh (available on Netflix)

“Born in Gaza” a documentary by Hernán Zin (available on Netflix)

“Samouni Road” a documentary & animation by Stefano Savona (available on Netflix and Palestine Film Institute’s website)

“Edward Said on Palestine (1988)” a TV documentary style film by Christoper Skyes (available on Youtube)

“To My Father (2008)” a documentary style film by Abdel Salam Shehada (available on Palestine Film Institute’s website)

“Salt of this sea” a movie by Annemarie Jacir (available on Netflix)

“Children of Shatila” a documentary by Mai Masri (available on Netflix & Youtube)

“The Present” a short movie by Farah Nabulsi (available on Netflix)

“Frontiers of Dreams and Fears” a documentary by Mai Masri (available on Netflix & Youtube)

“The Crossing” a short film by Ameen Nayfeh (available on Netflix)

“Tantura” a documentary by Alon Schwartz (available on Youtube)

“3000 nights” a movie by Mai Masri (available on Netflix)

“Farha” a movie by Darin J. Sallam (available on Netflix)

“Arna’s Children” a documentary by Juliano Mer-Khamis (available on Youtube)

“Ma’loul celebrates it’s destruction” a documentary by Michel Khleifi (available on Youtube)

“A World Not Ours” a documentary style movie by Mahdi Fleifel (available on Netflix)

“Like Twenty Impossibles” a movie by Annemarie Jacir (available on Netflix)

“Omar” a movie by Hany Abu Assad (available on Netflix)

“Mars At Sunrise” a movie by Jessica Habie (available on Netflix)

“5 Broken Cameras” a documentary by Emad Burnat & Guy Davidi (available on Youtube)

[this list will constantly be updated with more movies & documentaries that i’m reminded of, or with new pieces that i find and watch… if you have any suggestions please send them my way]

PS ; as this is a personal list coming from a Palestinian person, i will only be adding the movies and documentaries that i feel are MOST important and effective in transferring the message of the Palestinian cause… so all recommendations are highly appreciated yet this is just a personal list and doesn’t include all types of Palestinian (or Palestinian related) visual media 🙏

— Children of Shatila (1998) by Mai Masri

hi hari 💚 i just want to say thank you for never shutting up about palestine and wanted to ask if you were willing to share a little list of where you get your updates/news about the situation (and current events in general)? what sources are the most misinformation-free that you would recommend? i hope you have a lovely day xx

In terms of news sites, I'm really only trusting Al Jazeera's coverage of the situation. I'm also following pages like Times of Gaza and Eye On Palestine. But mainly, I'm following Palestinian citizens/journalists who are sharing live updates: Muhammad Smiry, Hind Khoudary, Motaz Azaiza, Wael Al Dahdouh, Plestia Alaqad, Yara Eid, Ali Jadallah, Abdallah Al Attar, and Mohammed Al Masri and probably a few more I can't remember right now.

If anyone has any other reputable sources that I may have missed please add them to this post.