Palestine, Arabic - 70 min
Feature Documentary Film
TOTAL BUDGET
US $ 102,850
CONFIRMED FINANCING
US $ 30,000
Primary Contact
rashid.masharawi@gmail.com
+33621520970
My mother Fatima, who is over 80 years old, is trying to find a copy of an old American Movie called Son of Sulam. She claims to have played "Sa’adah," the main character in the film, when she was 14 years old.
For several days, my mother, Fatima, who’s now over 80, was named Sa'adah. “That’s true! I was then about 14 years old,” she told us, almost swore on it. Later on, she had returned to her first name and continued living her life in Sulam, a Palestinian village in Marj Ibn Āmir (Jezreel Valley). When she got married, Fatima moved to Nazareth. Now she lives alone, after her husband died and her two sons and two daughters got married.
In April 2016, I got a call from my sister, who lives in Sulam. She said that she had a guest at her house—an American journalist in her 60’s, who came to find people from Sulam, who acted in a movie called Son of Sulam, directed by her father in 1951! My sister said: “She has a copy of the film!”
It’s hard for me to express how happy and fascinated I was during the screening of the film, especially when I noticed the resemblance between me and my mother. Some people even thought it was me who played the role of Sa’adah. While I deeply indulged in the movie, my mother hardly stopped pointing to her co-actors on the screen, her folks from the village of Sulam. She is the only one alive from the Sulamees who played in Son of Sulam.
My mother was born in 1937, a decade before 1948 Palestinian exodus and the establishment of the state of Israel. For me, dealing with her early life and memories is also dealing with my life and experiences. Not just because in many ways I’m a product of that Palestinian experience with its socio-political upheavals, but also because as a theater and movie actress myself, I feel a strong and special connection to this part of my mother’s life. I’m also proud to put on screen a documentary of a special historical importance: a film about the first Palestinian woman who took part in the first movie on Palestine.
For me, the film is a project through which I try, as a Palestinian, to show some aspects of our collective life through the personal experience and individual memories of my mother. On a professional level, after acting on screen and stage, and directing a short fiction film, this is an opportunity for me to enrich my experience by directing a documentary film.
For me as the producer, the film Looking for Sa'adah is an embodiment of Palestinian life before the establishment of the state of Israel. More importantly, the memory and geography are documented by an American filmmaker. The old film combines the city, the village and the Bedouin community with their different cultures, confirming that Palestine was a legitimate land with its people.
In the experience of the film and its construction, I see a new perspective on Arab and Palestinian cinema that deals with the Palestinian collective memory through individual memory. But in this case, the documentation of the events by an old feature film adds a personal aspect to that.
Rashid Masharawi as a director
2017: Writing on Snow Feature
2013: Palestine Stereo
2012: Land of the Story
2011: Picasso in Palestine, Aman
Homeland and City
2009: Hawra’ Baghdad
2008: Laila’s Birthday
2005: Waiting, Arafat My Brother
2003: Shahrazad, One Moon, Hommos
El Eid
2002: Checkpoint, Waiting, Home Movie,
Ticket to Jerusalem, Live From Palestine
2001: Love Season
2000: Out of Focus, Upside Down
1999: Behind the Walls
1998: Tension
1997: Rabab
1995: Haifa
1993: Curfew
1991: Long Days In Gaza
1990: Dar O Dour
1989: The Shelter
1986: Travel Document