By Kheir-Eddine Bouchikhi  | DEENO BK

Palestinian Cinema: Memory in the Face of Oblivion

In the 13th edition of the Oran International Arab Film Festival, the section “Palestine Forever” opens a vast window onto the Palestinian wound not as an open scar only, but as a living memory resisting erasure and rebuilding meaning through cinema. It is a section overflowing with emotion and conviction, where the screen itself becomes an alternative homeland, embracing what was stolen from the original land, restoring voice to identity and form to exile.

Palestinian cinema in this context does not simply narrate tragedy to evoke pity; rather, it reawakens it to create a new consciousness, a collective memory that defies oblivion. Every frame feels like the reclamation of a homeland from within a dream, and every camera movement becomes an act of resistance against silence. These films interweave personal narratives with collective history, the self with the land, forming a visual structure that merges longing with rebellion — the desire to remain with the impossibility of forgetting.

The participating works approach the Palestinian cause not merely as a political subject, but as a deeply human condition open to fundamental questions: Who are we when the land is taken from us? How do we build memory when exile surrounds us? Through the aesthetic power of the image and the delicacy of storytelling, these films reshape the relationship between human and place, granting Palestinians a space to breathe beyond stereotypes and static symbols.

In every film, there is a quiet form of resistance through words, through images, through faces that insist on existing despite every attempt at erasure. This edition of the Oran Festival thus feels like a double celebration: of cinema as art, and of Palestine as a memory that refuses to die. Between the glow of projection and the darkness of the theater, one feels profoundly that cinema is not merely a medium of expression, but a form of life itself  a life still crying out in the face of absence: We are here, and we shall remain forever.

| Memories of Palestine

Palestine / France – 2023 – Directed and Written by Maha Haj

In a human and dramatic setting, Suleiman and Lubna live in an isolated farmhouse, their days marked by tense discussions about the futures of their five children. The unexpected arrival of a stranger unearths a buried secret from the past, transforming their quiet dialogue into a confrontation with self and memory.

Maha Haj’s film blends family drama with existential reflection, using static camera frames and natural lighting to embody the tension between the home’s inner life and the haunting weight of the past.

The director grants Palestine a deeply human dimension that transcends geography — where memory itself becomes an alternate land, narrated through image rather than words.

| Upshot

Palestine / Italy / France – 2024 – Directed and Written by Serge Le Péron

This film documents Palestinian memory through the journey of Leila Shahid, who revisits her mother Sirine Husseini Shahid’s archives — the author of “Memories of Jerusalem” — tracing the story of a family whose history mirrors that of an entire nation.

Le Péron relies on archival montage and a reflective narrative voice to create a dialogue between individual and collective memory, between the personal and the national.

It is a film about continuity — where family history intersects with the destiny of a people, and the documentary image becomes an act of resistance against forgetting.

| The Life That Remains (وين صرنا؟)

Palestine / Egypt / Saudi Arabia – 2024 – Directed and Written by Dorra Zarrouk

The film tells the story of a Palestinian family uprooted from Gaza after the war of October 7, 2023  struggling with loss, hope, and the dream of returning to a devastated homeland.

In her directorial debut, Dorra Zarrouk employs close-up shots and a fragmented timeline to evoke a sense of internal exile. Each scene becomes a mirror to a disintegrating memory; each silence a witness to life persisting amid ruin.

It is a visual meditation on silent resistance — a redefinition of homeland as an emotional state rather than a geographical space.

 | From Ground Zero 

Palestine – 2025 – Curated by Rashid Masharawi – with a collective of Palestinian directors

A collective cinematic project launched by filmmaker Rashid Masharawi during the war on Gaza, aiming to document the voices and daily realities of its people.

Ten young directors participated, including I’timad Washah, Abdelrahman Sabah, Mohamed Al-Sharif, Ahmed Hassouna, Rabab Khamis, Alaa Damo, Aws Al-Banna, Mostafa Al-Nabiha, Nidal Damo, and Rima Mahmoud.

Using the raw aesthetics of cinéma vérité, the camera becomes a direct witness — capturing fear, endurance, and survival in a time when meanings collapse.

The project seeks not narrative but testimony — to affirm the image of the Palestinian who builds his own archive, waiting for no one else to tell his story.