An Israeli film director discovered the archives of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which raised questions about the Palestinian heritage and identity.
Did Palestinian history carefully record by filmmakers in the twentieth century as a means of preserving their heritage? Or is it, as some Israelis claim, just unorganized amateurs who work on the basic equipment in a primitive society?
In this documentary, Israeli researcher and director Carneate Mandel discovers invisible footage of Palestinian life in a box of old VHS tapes. The cassette is a small sample of a huge archive that was seized by the Palestine Liberation Organization during the 1982 Israel invasion of Lebanon. Mandel tries to recover from the Israeli army, but it opposes overwhelming and bureaucratic obstacles. A group of contradictory opinions hear from Palestinians who describe a sophisticated cinematic industry in the 1930s to Israeli historians who say Palestinian cinema did not exist at all. In the end, Mandal is forced to abandon her search – but highlights the ongoing struggle to control the narration on Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
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