Masarat

The Museum of the Cinema is proposing a retrospective of the work of film-maker Michel Khleifi, who continues to show the wounds of his people through fiction and documentary films. In his first feature-length film La mémoire fertile, Michel Khleifi told the history of his people, adopting a poetic metaphorical approach combined with the rigour of a documentary. In Michel Khleifi’s work, the idea of frontiers, separation but also therefore union, is omnipresent. As the cinema is capable of bringing down frontiers and providing a certain credibility to the word ‘ peace ’, the keys to understanding his films is in the celebration of union. In Noce en Galilée where Israeli soldiers mingle at the wedding of a Palestinian couple. In Cantique des pierres, where a couple is broken by the arrest of the man and the emigration of the woman, but is reunited many years later. Union finally in Route 181, which could be seen as a true act of cinematographic faith, since the film is codirected by a Palestinian film-maker (Michel Khleifi) and an Israeli film-maker (Eyal Sivan) and follows the road which runs alongside the frontiers fixed by resolution 181, adopted in 1947 by the United Nations, and which separated the two nations.

06.10 - 20:15 

La Mémoire fertile

Michel Khleifi

Documentary

Belgique, 104', 1980, V.O. st BIL.

Farah Hatoum, 50 years old, lives in Nazareth in Galilee. Sahar Khalifeh, a young Palestinian novelist from Ramallah lives in the occupied West Bank. Despite their great differences, both are confronted by the same Israeli occupation and same obstacles facing women in Arab societies

09.10 - 18:15

Noce en Galilée

Michel Khleifi

Fiction

Palestine, 116', 1987, V.O. st FR.

In a Palestinian village, the Moukhtar (Village Chief) asks the Israeli military governor to briefly interrupt the curfew to allow his son to marry according to tradition. The soldier agrees on condition that he is invited to the party along with the other guests. The old chief accepts.

10.10 - 20:15

Cantique des Pierres

Michel Khleifi

Fiction

Belgique, 105', 1990, V.O. st. BIL.

She is from Galilee, while he is from the West Bank. These two Palestinians briefly fall in love. They find each other and their passion ignites in the heart of the Intifada…

12.10 - 20:15

L'Ordre du Jour

Michel Khleifi

Fiction

Belgique, 105', 1992, V.O. st NL.

Screen adaptation of Jean-Luc Outers' novel 

Martin is bringing up his son Jonas alone. The Ministry of Public Works, his employer, is in turmoil due to the power struggles between its director Stark and his deputy Gosselin and the results of recent elections. Though subjected to ever greater pressure, Martin refuses corruption and his life becomes hell

13.10 - 18:15

Conte des trois diamants

Michel Khleifi

Fiction

Palestine/Belgique/Grande-Bretagne

112', 1994, V.O. st BIL.

One day, while chasing birds, Youssef becomes the hero of a modern story. He falls in love with Aïda, the young ‘ ringleader ’ of a group of gypsy kids. To marry her, he has to find three lost diamonds from an old family necklace, brought from South America by the young girl’s grandfather. How will Youssef manage to leave Gaza for this distant continent ?

15.10 - 18:15

Forbidden Marriages in the Holy Land

Michel Khleifi & Omar Al-Qattan

Documentary

Palestine/Belgique/Grande Bretagne

106', 1995, V.O. st. FR.

Blending the accounts of representatives of the three religions and the stories of mixed couples, we can see the enormous pressure exerted on the population to maintain social cohesion, focusing on the reaffirmation of a political and national identity. But we also notice, via the chain of stories, how dogma and nationalist hatred dissolve in diversity.

17.10 - 18:15

Route 181 Fragments d'un voyage en Palestine-Israël

Michel Khleifi & Eyal Sivan

Road-Movie documentary

France/Allemagne/Belgique

270', 2004, V.O. st. FR.

A joint look by an Israeli and a Palestinian. From a series of random meetings, snapshots of everyday life, they give voice to men and women, Israelis and Palestinians, young or old, civilians or soldiers… Each has his or her way of describing the boundaries that separate them from their neighbours : concrete, cynicism, barbed wire, humour, indifference, suspicion, aggression…