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Michel Khleifi

Ma'loul fête sa destruction (Ma'loul Celebrates Its Destruction)

Director Michel Khleifi
30' - 1985 - Documentary - Format: DCP - Dialogue: Arabic

Following the inhabitants of destroyed village, Michel Khleifi's 1985 short film is a unique look at the painful consequences of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After the screening, there will be a Director's Talk with Michel Khleifi, who will receive a Joseph Plateau Honorary Award.

Ma'loul is a Palestinian village in Galilee which was destroyed by the Israeli armed forces in 1948. Its inhabitants were driven out and expropriated. All that remains of the village are two churches and a mosque, the last visible traces for travellers between Haifa and Nazareth. Over the years, they too disappeared, under a forest planted in memory of the victims of Nazism. The Israeli authorities thus wiped off the map hundreds of Arab villages.

But the former inhabitants of Ma'loul have created a new tradition: that of going for a picnic one day a year on the site of their destroyed village, paradoxically on the day of the independence of the State of Israel. It is the day of the picnic that we filmed; the encounter with a stone, a window, a wall, an olive or a pomegranate tree ... hidden under the woods. A peasant notes among the young pines certain uncertain landmarks of his lost universe. A family comments with a naive purity on the mural fresco of their village, painted according to traces from their memory. As required by the official Israeli curriculum, a teacher explains to his Arab students the history of the creation of the State of Israel … These are elements of reality that confront each other and make up the film; they allow us to pose a new dimension to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: that of time.

After the screening of Ma'loul fête sa destruction, there's an extensive Director's Talk with Michel Khleifi. The director will also receive a Joseph Plateau Honorary Award.

Combi-ticket 'A Tribute to Michel Khleifi'

On 10 October you get to spend the whole day with (films by) Michel Khleifi. Buy your combi-ticket for Fertile Memory, La battaglia di Algeri (Khleifi's choice), his Director's Talk (including a screening of the short Ma'loul fête sa destruction), and Noce en Galilée.

Image gallery

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Credits

Directors

Michel Khleifi

Scenario

Michel Khleifi

Director of Photography

Yves Vandermeeren, Marc-André Battigne

Editors

Dominique Loreau, Monique Riesling

Producers

Michel Khleifi, Perrine Humblet

More info

Dialogue

Arabic

Countries of production

Belgium, Israël

Year

1985

Filmography

Michel Khleifi
Al Dhakira al Khasba (1981), Ma'loul celebrates its Destruction (1984), Urs al-jalil (1987), Nashid el-hajar (1991), Order of the Day (1993), Hikayatul jawahiri thalath (1995), You, me Jerusalem (1995), Forbidden Mariages in the Holy Land (1995), Route 181: Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel (2003), Zindeeq (2009)

Technical Specs

Format
DCP