The Association of the Palestinian Community in the UK and the Palestine Film Foundation present a rare cinema screening of Bouhan Alaouie’s 1974 classic…
KAFR KASSEM Bourhan Alaouie / 1974Drama / 104min
KAFR KASSEM is an expertly paced political drama that stands the test of time. Amongst the earliest films on Palestine to be widely seen in the Arab world, the film was the first to foreground the fate of those who had remained ‘behind’ in the occupied homeland. On the even of the 1956 Suez War, Israel imposed a curfew on Palestinians living under its rule. Unaware of this, the villagers of Kafr Kassem were met by Israeli troops on returning from work in the evening. Many were subsequently executed in what became known as the Kafr Kassem massacre. Lebanese director Bourhan Alaouie’s portrait of village life in the hours leading up to the atrocity is a seminal work of political cinema from the region. Made at the height of the Palestinian revolution, the film was produced and distributed in association with the PLO’s Cinema Institution. It indicts a regime of exploitation and violence faced by Palestinians in Israel while calling for a renewal of pan-Arab solidarities and social reform. protagonists.
Presented by the Association of the Palestinian Community in the UK and the Palestine Film Foundation.