Palestine Blues

Nida Sinnokrot

In Arabic and English, with English subtitles

What is left for Palestinian farmers who learn that in 24hrs the Israeli Army will confiscate their lands for the construction of the wall? What do people do when their very survival is threatened by one of the world’s most powerful armies? Palestine Blues tells the story of a village’s confusion, desperation, and resistance, their daily victories and wrenching defeats. Unexpectedly filled with moments of poetry and humour this film’s intimate access, unforgettable characters and story structure blur the line between documentary and narrative. Filmed at times with a hidden camera and at times under extreme duress, PalestinianAmerican filmmaker Nida Sinnokrot gives us a lasting chronicle of a people and their ancient lifegiving orchards, ever threatened by destruction.

Nida Sinnokrot is an artist and educator whose work explores how various forms of power and bias are embedded in dominant narrative structures and attendant articulations of time and space. Working across film, video, photography, sculpture, installation, and agriculture, Nida seeks to expose and cannibalize -through tactile, tactical and material acts of technical and conceptual detournement- various technologies of control that give rise to shifting social, political and environmental instabilities. Nida is a co-founder of Sakiya – Art | Science | Agriculture, an international residency program and research platform in the West Bank village of Ein Qinya, and Associate Professor in the Art, Culture, and Technology program (ACT) at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nida’s first feature film, Palestine Blues (2006), a documentary on Palestinian farmers’ struggles in a disappearing landscape, screened in over thirty festivals worldwide and won seven awards for Best Documentary.

Venue: UA S Building, Lange Sint Annastraat 7, 2000, Antwerpen.