In the 1960s, a strand of cinema - known variously as Militant or Third Cinema - embraced the principles of progressive, revolutionary, liberatory politics and turned the film camera into a weapon. The movement barely survived the neoliberal decimation of both political activism and filmmaking in the 1980s. Today, it is all but dead.

However, a small number of filmmakers, principally from the Global South or in solidarity with Global South liberation movements, have picked up the camera from beside the body of their fallen comrades and refused to let the tradition of militant cinema die.

With a focus on the genocide in Palestine and the cultural resistance movement, this strand brings together one of the landmark films of Palestinian militant cinema with two contemporary works - one Palestinian, and one made in solidarity with Palestinian.

They Do Not Exist (1974) is a poetic evisceration of European colonialism through images of survival and revival in the refugee camps of Southern Lebanon. Rescued from the wreckage of Beirut in 1982, the film was smuggled into Jerusalem - reconstituted and restored - for its Palestinian premiere in 2003. Influenced by everything from Palestinian vernacular to European arthouse and Third Cinema, the film went on to define a new era of insurgent filmmaking.

This version of They Do Not Exist was made by No Name Cinema, who commissioned an audio engineer to clean up the soundtrack, and worked with a grader to do colour correction.

O, Persecuted (2014) Basma Alsharif’s fragmented ode to restoration and degradation, crafted directly from the shrapnel of past militant films. Commissioned by the Palestine Film Foundation to make a film in response to Kassem Hawal’s 1974 militant Palestinian film “Our Small Houses”, O, Persecuted uses the act of restoration to force the burden of history onto an unforeseen future.

néantir (2024) yann beauvais’ unrelenting and unapologetic dialectical cascade of first-person militant videos and incriminating Israeli news footage. A bewildering examination of the often suppressed media images that created the Palestine of today, and the often criminalised images emerging from Palestine since October 7, 2023.

Curated and introduced by Saeed Taji Farouky.

Saeed Taji Farouky is a Palestinian-British filmmaker and artist who has been making films around themes of conflict, human rights, and colonialism since 1998. He is also a radical educator and runs Radical Film School, a free programme for filmmakers from underrepresented backgrounds to develop political cinema and autonomous filmmaking collectives.

The making and exhibition of these films is not only a reflection of liberatory politics, but a political act in itself. These films will provide an introduction to a collective discussion with Saeed and Humberto Perez-Blanco on how we can continue making and innovating political/militant cinema today, and the importance of establishing autonomous networks free from the overwhelming influence of Britain’s mainstream film institutions.

Humberto is a member of Bristol Radical Film Festival, specializing in Contemporary Argentine cinema,  political cinema (particularly Third Cinema in Latin America) and its comparison to current practices of political filmmaking around the globe. He's also very interested in issues of documentary theory, particularly the relation between image and reality. Through involvement with the Bristol Radical Film Festival, he's also working on the social functions of all sorts of cultural events particularly film festivals and community screenings.

All ticket sales going to Palestine Red Crescent Society.

artwork Andrew Wilson

Timings

19:00 - Doors open
19:30 - Screening starts (Runtime 50min)
20:30 - Discussion with Saeed Taji Farouky