Projection Night – Films by Norma Marcos

Palestine – France

Film projection by Norma Marcos
* The projection will be followed by a discussion with the director

A long hot summer in Palestine (2018)

I was shooting a film on women with my niece Yara who was in my previous film and the “normal ” daily life in the West Bank before the war on Gaza in June 2014. “I’m 16 and I’ve already been through three wars” said Farah Baker, a Palestinian girl in a tweet read by 70,000 people after the bombing of her house in Gaza. Shocked by this tweet, I knew that my film would take another direction.
My film juxtaposes images of this war, the colonies, and the wall, to the beauty and peace of nature. Despite having endured endless oppression and successive wars, the Palestinians have always tried to rebuild their society from the rubble.
An artist, baker, farmer, florist, banker, women race driver, and woman mayor from the West Bank, illuminate this situation with a fresh look.
My camera encountered Palestinians in the West Bank. Through an artist, a banker, a florist, a woman race driver, a woman mayor… we discover how they are affected by this conflict in their daily life, their solidarity towards Gaza and how they rebuild their society despite the Israeli oppression and violence.

Credits
Genre: Documentary
Run. Time: 74min
Director: Norma Marcos
Camera: Norma Marcos
Sound: Norma Marcos
Producers: Norma Marcos and Marie-Clémence Paes
Voice over registration: Philippe Fabbri
Music: Agnès Vincent and Aramaic music
Editing: Cesar Paes, Catherine D’hoir, Théo Carrere
Executive producer: Xavier Decraenne
Sound editing: Catherine d’Hoir, Adam Wolny
Sound mixing: Adam Wolny,  Adrien Ingelbert
Color Grading: Kevin Stragliati
Voice over recording: Philippe Fabbri
Calligraphy: Ahmed Dari
Subtitles: Norma Marcos, Théo Carrere
Translation: Norma Marcos & Richard Howard
Laboratory Post production: Polyson , Patrick Long
Shooting locations: Palestine

Director’s statement
Filming locations: The region of Bethlehem, East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley.
I am Palestinian and have lived in France for over twenty-five years. My work always combines my Arab origin and the culture of my adopted country. Oppression and the love of beauty are two themes that have always fascinated me and gave me the desire to do films. They have guided my work as a filmmaker. I wanted to make a film about the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and how strongly they are connected despite everything and everyone who tries to separate them. The backbone of the film is the solidarity of the Palestinians for each other. Living in Gaza or the West Bank, they are faced with the same tragic occupation. In this quest, I have given the testimonies of Palestinian women an important place. My film A long hot summer in Palestine takes us into the world of art, sounds, political life, and the colors of everyday life, while remaining close to an almost wild nature. There is a mystical atmosphere in the nature of Palestine, portrayed by its monasteries, its wilderness, its gardens and hills, all of which transport us to very ancient times. Throughout my film I juxtapose beauty, violence, and misunderstanding. On World Peace Day, I shot a sequence in the Carmelite monastery in Bethlehem, where we see a cat quietly nursing her kittens under the deafening sound of Israeli warplanes. A stark contrast to the quiet beauty of the monastery… Similarly, I wanted the music and sounds of this film, to be characters in themselves. Sometimes they jostle us with sorrow and pain, and sometimes they fill us with joy. Palestinian society continues to demand freedom, desiring simply to live normally. The Israeli authorities from all parties as well as the Palestinian fundamentalists (though few live in Palestine) continue to disregard this incredible thirst for life and freedom. Neither one, have completely managed to turn the Palestinian people into slaves…
As Reverend Mitri Raheb: «The Palestinian people (Muslims, Christians, and Palestinian Jews) are a critical and dynamic continuum from Canaan to biblical times, from the Greek, Roman, Arab, and Turkish eras up to the present day. They are the native peoples, who survived those empires and occupations. They changed their language, from Aramaic and Greek to Arabic, while their identity shifted from Canaanite, to Hittite, to Hivite, to Perizzite, to Girgasite, to Amorite, to Jebusite, to Philistine, Israelite, Judaic/Samaritan, to Hasmonaic, to Jewish, to Byzantine, to Arab, to Ottoman and to Palestinian. My film shows four months in the life of the people in the West Bank, who face economic and political crisis caused by the massive bombardment in Gaza. Far from the clichés we see on the news, my film reminds us that the Palestinian people continue to create art, develop culture, do sport, and simply live.
Norma Marcos
Director

Fragments of a lost Palestine (2010)

This film is a subjective journey, filmed as fragments of memories in exile from my country of birth, Palestine.
Most of the time, art comes from the roots. Palestinian artists in exile always return to the theme of Palestine as well as writers or artists such as James Joyce and Picasso who wrote or painted on the subject of their country of origin (Ulysses and bullfights).
The filmmaker relives the desert, the birds, the flora, the fauna, the butterflies, the 2000-year-old olive trees, the Dead Sea, the traditional geometric architectural patterns of the windows and doors, the different skies of Palestine, the minarets, the bells.

Press reviews:
FRAGMENTS OF A LOST PALESTINE: Set in an elusive space between normalcy and nowhere, this very personal film journal records the dilemma of filmmaker Marcos, who holds both a French and a Palestinian passport, but is recognized as neither nationality by Israeli authorities.  Initially trapped in a bureaucratic limbo when denied entry to Palestine to visit her ailing mother, she ultimately sees her victory in shaping a film around images of ordinary life as it is lived in its fullness by family and friends.
USA. Arabs.com. Barbara Scharres

Palestinian film maker Norma Marcos has a French passport yet finds herself a citizen of nowhere. Denied entry to Palestine by the Israeli authorities, she is unable to visit her ailing mother, and spends much of her time on the phone being given the runaround by civil servants. When she is finally allowed home to visit, she is keen to show her friend Stefan how people try to live normal lives outside of the occupation and that there is a vibrant side of Palestine that exists outside of grim reports of violence and war. Marcos demonstrates that despite the inescapably tense political environment, life goes on.
The New York Times, online

Credits
Genre: Documentary
Run. Time: 74min
Director: Norma Marcos
Camera: Norma Marcos
Sound: Norma Marcos
Producers: Norma Marcos and Fernand Garcia
Sound mixing: Simon Apostolou
Editing: Manu Bodin
Recording of Voice Over: Xavier Griette
Subtitles: Isabelle Erchoff
Translation: Norma Marcos & Richard Howard
Calligraphy: Ahmed Dari
Shooting locations: Palestine

Trailer:

Norma Marcos

Norma Marcos is a Palestinian filmmaker and scriptwriter. In 1989 she was assistant on a film on Yasser Arafat produced by ARTE. She co-directed Bethlehem at Christmas produced by Canal+.
She directed: The Veiled Hope, produced by France3. It was broadcast on more than ten European TV channels: distributed by Women Make Movies.
Waiting for Ben Gurion,
Fragments of a Lost Palestine,
Wahdon a short feature film broadcast by France3 Corse
A Long Hot Summer in Palestine: screened in France in 44 movie theaters and was awarded a Special Mention at the International Festival, Italy):
Her films have participated in many international festivals: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, San Francisco, Keswick film festival, and are distributed by ESC distribution.
She won Grand Prize, for Best Screenplay among 357 feature scripts for: Nouzha
She recently wrote a new feature script: Sami, Like Dew Drops on thorns.
Winner of several international awards:
Laureate of Villa Medicis Hors Les Murs for: “Retrouvez Jerusalem”, Knightfellowship at Stanford University.
Publishing a book at the French Editing House Riveneuve and bought in French by Princeton university: The Veil of Despair, Women, Sexuality and Feminism of Palestine.
Laureate of Stiftung Umverteilen, Germany.
Laureate of a European competition Mediscript.
Laureate of Sources 2.
Laureate of Reuters Knight fellowships at Stanford University California, where she was chosen from among 185 international journalists.