Fertile Memory

Frames of Palestine warmly invites you to the public screening and discussion of the film Fertile Memory (1981), by the Palestinian director Michel Khleifi, on February 29 at 7:00 PM at Voz do Operário.

This screening has been organised by the working group Thinking Documentary Film (CineLab) in collaboration with Royal Cine. After the screening, researcher Dima Mohammad will discuss the film with the audience. The event is free and open to all.

Zaytouna will provide Palestinian food for those who would like to snack or dine.

About the film

Fertile Memory is the feature debut of pioneering director Michel Khleifi. Lyrically blending both documentary and narrative elements, Khleifi skillfully and lovingly crafts a portrait of two Palestinian women whose individual struggles both define and transcend the politics that have torn apart their homes and their lives.

“Both Sahar and Romia are trapped by the society in which they live, but they experience this stuckness differently. Sahar possesses the words, the other doesn’t. Romia exists, but without defining herself as an individual. Both are frustrated by history, the intellectual one perhaps doubly so for her awareness of this frustration, of the loneliness imposed on her by her situation as a divorcée. Romia accepts her solitude after becoming a widow without bitterness, because she has decided that there is no other way. One character’s words corner those of the other, and I insisted on the film to work in that way, so that the viewer reacts to it, takes active part in the film, becomes an accomplice.” — Michel Khleifi

Event supported by the Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência e para a Tecnologia) of the Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science under the project UIDP/00183/2020.