Set to world-premiere in the Envision competition of this year’s IDFA (9-22 November – see the news), Khaled Jarrar’s documentary Notes on Displacement [+lee también:
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The feature zooms in on Nadira, an elderly Palestinian lady who has been a refugee since the age of 12. Now she has to flee Damascus, too. Nadira and her daughter Mona feared for their lives there, but the idea of a safe existence elsewhere is a distant dream. Jarrar receives unsettling videos and voice messages as they cross to the Greek island of Lesbos. He joins them there, on the long road to a new life.

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The director has his own personal reasons for going through this experience in order to eliminate, through his own images, the distance so dominant in Western media coverage. He further explained: “My grandmother Shafiqa was forced to leave her home in Haifa, her jasmine tree, her cup of tea on her balcony and her view of the sea. I inherited this ‘pain print’ of hers through haunted memories both beautiful and painful at the same time. They chased me in my dreams like ghosts that never intended to leave. I tried to escape through geography, through emotion, through psychology, but leaving the past behind proved impossible. Something always forced me back in time.”

He added: “Nadira’s plea brought me to the front lines; creating new memories by walking this new exodus together. We were inside the frame in real time, capturing the present to battle the past – creating a communication between the two. As the director, from behind the camera, I was driven to offer images of our own making, outside the never-ending Western paparazzi image onslaught of displaced refugees. This film is for us, our values, our knowledge, our experiences.”

Notes on Displacement was produced by Khaled Jarrar for Jenin Films (Palestine) and Thomas Kaske for Kaske Film (Germany), in co-production with May Odeh for Odeh Films (Palestine).

Check out our exclusive trailer below: