Date: 11.01.2024
Beginning: 19:00

We invite you to a screening of FORAGERS (al-Yad al-Kadra) as part of the KINO PALESTINE series

Foragers depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in Palestine/Israel with wry humor and a meditative pace. It moves between fiction, documentary and archival footage to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs. The restrictions prohibit the collection of the artichoke-like ’akkoub and za’atar (thyme), and have resulted in fines and trials for hundreds caught collecting these native plants. For Palestinians, these laws constitute an ecological veil for legislation that further alienates them from their land while Israeli state representatives insist on their scientific expertise and duty to protect. Following the plants from the wild to the kitchen, from the chases between the foragers and the nature patrol, to courtroom defenses, Foragers captures the inherited love, joy and knowledge in these traditions alongside their resilience to the prohibitive law. By reframing the terms and constraints of preservation, the film raises questions around the politics of extinction, namely who determines what is made extinct and what gets to live on.

director: Jumana Manna
2022, 64 min.

Jumana Manna is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her work explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land and materiality in relation to colonial inheritances and histories of place. Through sculpture, filmmaking, and occasional writing, Manna deals with the paradoxes of preservation practices, particularly within the fields of archaeology, agriculture and law. Her practice considers the tension between the modernist traditions of categorisation and conservation and the unruly potential of ruination as an integral part of life and its regeneration. Jumana was raised in Jerusalem and lives in Berlin.

The film will be introduced by Zaher Jureidini, curator of the KINO PALESTINE film series. The film will be screened with English subtitles. Free entrance.

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KINO PALESTINE

In light of recent and ongoing events in Palestine, we believe there is a strong need for actualizing the solidarity of Prague’s cultural spaces, and doing so collaboratively. KINO PALESTINE is a step toward this goal, specifically toward presenting images of life and resistance in Gaza, the West Bank, and the Palestinian diaspora. As we are daily confronted with victimizing, generalizing, and violent sights and narratives, and amidst ongoing efforts to silence and censor journalists and artists in Palestine and Europe, we hope that this series of screenings might provide a clearer, emboldening vision of Palestine and its people – its history, its present situation, and the freedom in its future. Initiated by Garage Gallery, KINO PALESTINE is a growing, collective effort to amplify Palestinian voices of resistance. Standing in solidarity with all victims of violence, we refuse systemic silencing.

The series KINO PALESTINE is curated by Zaher Jureidini (Prague/Berlin/Beirut).