Militant Cinema and the Adjudicating Gaze at Metropolis Empire Sofil

As part of the Home Works 6 Platform, Metropolis Empire Sofil is hosting film screenings by Subversive Films.

In addressing their dissident claims toward the court of public opinion at home, several of the international radicals who applied film to champion the Palestinian cause in the 1970s pretended to the role of expert witnesses. Though militantly partisan, they adapted cinematic conventions suggesting the international gaze as one of relative impartiality, their films soberly adjudicating over the historic and moral legitimacy of the Palestine case.

Moving images were submitted as audio-visual evidence for the prosecution of Zionism or as proofs legitimating armed struggle. And when filmic structures associated with observational neutrality inevitably struggled to contain the filmmakers’ ideological sensibilities, the collision of impassioned advocacy and impartial witnessing resulted in some distinct forms of militant cinema.

The following research screenings comprise two works made on the Palestinian revolution by radical filmmaking collectives: “L’Olivier/ The Olive Tree” by the Groupe Cinema Vincennes (1976, France), and “We Are the Palestinian People/ Revolution Until Victory” by Pacific Newsreel (1973, US). A discussion with the audience follows each screening.