“A lot of people don’t even know, surprisingly, that the British were even in Palestine, this film is for Palestinians. It’s our story that hasn’t been told,” according to director and writer of Palestine 36, Annemarie Jacir.

The film was launched at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival and has been put forward for best foreign film at the 98th Academy Awards.

The story revolves around Yusuf who moves from his rural home to work in Jerusalem, which allows the writers to contrast the fast international events playing out on Palestine’s political destiny with the slow realisation in the countryside of the tragedy that was about to befall the local rural inhabitants. A resistance movement builds up against confiscations which kicks the British army into a murderous mode that they used in the many countries they colonised.

While Palestine 36 is set in the 1930s the parallels between the British soldiers then and the Israeli soldiers of today are astonishing:

“At one point in the film, a young Palestinian man is tied to the front of a vehicle by British soldiers, as a human shield. While filming the scene in Nablus, a city in the West Bank, the very same day Israeli soldiers strapped a wounded Palestinian man to a military vehicle during a raid in Jenin.”

It is shown that while the European Jews were initially welcomed to Palestine, there was confusion when they started fencing off the areas they were living in and their land confiscations were being protected by the British.

The film covers different social strata of Palestinian society and their different ways of dealing with the new politics and social pressures. It depicts unity between the women and the armed resistance and it is not shy about showing those Palestinians who readily betrayed the people for personal or familial gain.

The overall theme of the film, and what makes it such a heartwarming watch, is unity among the Palestinians. It depicts their resistance at every level to the overwhelming forces that were only beginning to make themselves known in 1936, and later when it seemed that when things couldn’t get any worse, they did.

Even the making of the film was beset by the problems of current colonialism:

“From the start she [Jacir] was adamant about filming in Palestine, but production was shut down days before it was due to start, following the 7 October attacks. The foreign team were evacuated and it took hours for Palestinian crew members to return to their homes amid total lockdown. Forced to relocate to Jordan for 13 months, they were later able to return, but found one location – an entire village that they had painstakingly restored, including planting tobacco and cotton – had been overrun by settlers.”

Palestine 36 is a beautifully shot period film that covers many different aspects of the Palestinian struggle and will play an important part in increasing Palestinian solidarity and support globally into the future.

*

Click the share button below to email/forward this article. Follow us on Instagram and X and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost Global Research articles with proper attribution.

Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. Caoimhghin has just published his new book – Against Romanticism: From Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery, which looks at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment of Enlightenment ideals. It is available on Amazon (amazon.co.uk) and the info page is here. 

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).  

Featured image: Palestine 36 poster (Fair use)

Global Research is a reader-funded media. We do not accept any funding from corporations or governments. Help us stay afloat. Click the image below to make a one-time or recurring donation.