Hamdan

1948. Black and white images celebrate the birth of the state of Israel. Followed by those of the first expulsion of the Palestinians, the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the occupation of the West Bank. The archives, which retrace official history, are interrupted by the story of a man. In 1973, Hamdan, an exiled resistance fighter, was ordered to enter Palestine clandestinely to teach young people from the occupied territories how to use explosives. Captured by the Israelis, he spent fifteen years in prison in barbaric conditions. His account, in voiceover, carried along by powerfully evocative images, floats over deserted roads, dilapidated houses and silent faces. Interrupted by moving testimonies, he narrates the existential condition of a people, and the horror of a descent into hell. “We can wonder: what happens when a state that thinks it is God takes up a position somewhere as the master and allows a people to live, only on the condition that they do so as slaves? How would anyone react to this extreme situation?” (MS)

Luciano Barisone