Archiving Resistance

Once on a visit in Japan, Palestinian filmmaker Mohanad Yaqubi and his collective Subversive Films was entrusted with a collection of 16mm films and U-matic tapes, dozens of posters, and a full library safe-guarded for decades by a Japanese solidarity group in Tokyo. The material, considered either lost or unknown to the public, was sent to Japan in several waves from 1967 to 1982 and sheds light on the overlooked and still undocumented anti-imperialist solidarity between Japan and Palestine. The twenty film reels were made by Palestinian, Arab, Japanese, and American filmmakers and journalists, and were commissioned by various political bodies, TV stations, and UNRWA for example. The imperfect aura of the films bears witness to the changing political attitude of the internationalist solidarity movement that took center stage during that period, including here in Prague.

Also showing films are currently being re-distributed by the Palestine Film Institute as part of their “Provoked Narrative” initiative, which aims to make rare works of Palestinian filmmakers accessible. The initiative invites viewers “to consider the ways in which the camera, since its very inception as a new tool, has played a conflicted role in the project of empire; to consider how images have been co-opted, and to see how images can also resist.”