“Revolutionaries By no means Die” was the winner of the highest award at this 12 months’s Cairo Movie Connection, the business program of the Cairo Movie Competition. Selection interviewed the Palestinian director Mohanad Yaqubi, who gained the perfect challenge in post-production prize.
“Revolutionaries By no means Die,” which is produced by Yaqubi’s firm Idioms Movie, is his third archive-based movie. It explores the work of Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab throughout her first decade of filmmaking, from 1973 to 1983.
Yakubi grew up in Kuwait, Amman, Egypt, Libya, Gaza and the West Financial institution, after which studied a grasp’s diploma in movie at London’s Goldsmiths Faculty, earlier than returning to the West Financial institution, and eight years in the past he settled in Ghent, Belgium, the place he’s a resident researcher on the Royal Academy of Wonderful Arts (KASK).
For this challenge he’s working with researcher Mathilde Rouxel, who was Saab’s assistant over the last decade of her life.
How did this challenge come about?
I obtained entry to 115 reels directed by Jocelyne Saab between 1973 and 1983. The decisive turning level was when my household’s home was bombed in Gaza – in April 2024. There’s a scene in Jocelyne Saab’s 1982 movie “Beirut My Metropolis,” the place she is standing in entrance of her bombed home and speaking in regards to the circumstances and her emotions and the that means of that home for her. I fully recognized along with her, though I by no means had the prospect to be in entrance of my very own destroyed home. That’s the second the place all the things she made between 1973 and 1983 out of the blue made sense for me – like, that is the value you pay as a politically engaged filmmaker attempting to assist the Palestinian battle. It turns into magical when you place Jocelyne’s photos on the timeline and her voice begins to steer us. It’s as if she’s making the movie and I’m the instrument making this occur.
Do you suppose movies can change political realities?
I’ve truly stopped believing within the energy of the picture and filmmaking, as I’ve watched the genocide unfold, seeing your entire destruction – reside, 24 hours a day. It’s not in regards to the quantity of photos or telling individuals what’s happening. It’s finally a query of geopolitical energy.
Did you ever meet Jocelyne Saab?
No. We had an change by e mail. She despatched me one e mail that I didn’t reply to, and he or she handed away 5 weeks later, in 2019.
Why do you suppose her movies from this era are attention-grabbing?
She’s not solely trying on the Palestinian query. Her movies provide the hope for change. They’re in regards to the Arab left. She made movies in Western Sahara, Egypt, Iran and likewise in Lebanon. In 1973 her movies have been about romantically politicized revolutionaries. However her outlook started to vary due to the civil conflict in Lebanon and her sense of disbelief, as she noticed how the nation she believed in and liked was destroyed.
Are there any parallels with what she filmed on this interval and in the present day’s state of affairs?
One large attribute of the Arab mentality is that issues are repeated on a regular basis. What I’m attempting to do is to step again and present that the aggression by no means stops and attempt to establish a few of the underlying issues. That is actually why I’m fascinated by archives as a result of if we take a look at different movies made in Gaza within the Nineteen Seventies, it seems to be like nothing has modified. However within the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies there have been political concepts, associated to left-wing events, and attempting to make a coherent understanding of the state of affairs. Now it’s simply blunt violence.
Who’s your movie for?
I’m , above all, in talking with Palestinians. Individuals who don’t have sovereignty, don’t have archives and don’t have manufacturing of a data system. There isn’t a organized schooling system. Movies develop into a method to create this sort of dialogue. Proper now, the principle precedence isn’t about creating photos. It’s about creating a real dialogue.
Why has it been vital to indicate your challenge within the Cairo Movie Connection?
I believe it’s the primary market the place I’m displaying this movie. I needed to have an Arab base for this and Cairo was the best choice. I’ve been visiting Cairo over the past two years as a result of my mother and father live there, since they left Gaza. There are nonetheless individuals to debate the challenge with and current the movie in a wider perspective, for an Arab viewers.
