La Mémoire fertile

by Michel Khleifi

1981 Selection

BELGIUM / PALESTINE 1981 1h39

Feature Film

Mrs Farah HATOUM is fifty years old and widowed ; she lives in Nazareth, Galilee. Her personal history is shaped by the history of her people : her husband having died in exile in Beyrouth (1948), she had to struggle to bring up her two children in dignity, with the hope that, one day, she would recover her plot of land, expropriated in 1948 by the Israeli government.
Sahar KHALIFEH is a young Palestinian writer. She lives in Ramallah, in the occupied Cisjordania. Married at the age of 18, divorced 13 years later, she had to struggle to obtain the divorce and the care of her two daughters. It is only then that she resumed her studies at Bir Zeit, the only Palestinian university. She has written three novels already. They all show a critical and perceptive understanding of Palestinian reality under Israeli occupation.