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Formally daring within its rigorous and restrained aesthetic, Palestinian director Elia Suleiman’s episodic, elliptical cinematic essay about what it meant to be a Palestinian in the Occupied Territories in 1996, is constructed in two parts. “Nazareth, A Personal Diary”, set in Suleiman’s birthplace, renders a series of vignettes of everyday life with its rounds of boredom, solitude, complaint, conviviality, and often surreal contradiction. Characters wander in and out of the film, essentially writing their own diary entries. Part two “Jerusalem, A Political Diary” features Suleiman himself as a deadpan internal exile observing events around him: rampant, chaotic tourism in the Holy Land, and the terrors of partition and paranoia which culminate in a personal encounter with the Israeli army during a house raid which is both scary and absurd. According to Suleiman, the film depicts ‘a situation of stasis, characterised by deprivation, disillusionment, and lack of action’. Angry, sad, witty and tender, the film does not provide distinct answers to questions of Palestinian identity. Rather it offers an assortment of possible truths as it explores, through Suleiman’s own eyes, the effects of ghettoisation and marginalisation on the Palestinian psyche. The film won the Best First Feature Award at Venice Film Festival in 1996. In Arabic with English subtitles.
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Collection
In ACMI's collection
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
318231
Languages
Arabic
English
Subject categories
Advertising, Film, Journalism, Mass Media & TV → Film festivals - Italy - Venice - Awards
Advertising, Film, Journalism, Mass Media & TV → Foreign language films
Anthropology, Ethnology, Exploration & Travel → Ethnicity
Anthropology, Ethnology, Exploration & Travel → Israel - Social life and customs
Anthropology, Ethnology, Exploration & Travel → Jerusalem
Anthropology, Ethnology, Exploration & Travel → Palestine
Anthropology, Ethnology, Exploration & Travel → Palestinian Arabs
Armed Forces, Military, War & Weapons → Israel-Arab Border Conflicts, 1949-
Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion & Sociology → Ethnicity
Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion & Sociology → Israel - Social conditions
Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion & Sociology → Palestinian Arabs
Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion & Sociology → West Bank - Colonization
Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion & Sociology → West Bank - Social conditions
Feature films → Feature films - Palestine
Sound/audio
Sound
Colour
Colour
Holdings
VHS; Access Print (Section 1)
MOV file ProRes4444; Digital Preservation Master - overscan
MPEG-4 Digital File; ACMI Digital Access Copy - overscan