Subversive Film, Tokyo Reels Program II

JOAN and Now Instant Image Hall Present: Tokyo Reels – Subversive Film Collective (Program II)

Join us for the second installment showcasing Tokyo Reels, a 2022 project by Subversive Film Collective. This program features selections from a rare archive of 16mm film reels, which constitute a collection kept and safeguarded by members of a Japanese Palestine solidarity group in Tokyo. The screening will open with an introduction by anthropologist and filmmaker Joanne Nucho, who will also moderate a post-screening discussion with the audience.

Tokyo Reels is a multi-faceted archival project that explores the production of images and narratives in the framework of international solidarity between Japan and Palestine from the 1960s to the 1980s. The collection includes the film reels, as well as tens of Umatic tapes, dozens of posters, and more. The first output of the project is focused on an essay film and several publications. Based on extensive interviews and archival research, the films from the collection become juxtaposed with other archival images from Japan, reclaiming the imaginary of an international solidarity movement.

Subversive Film is a cinema research and production collective founded by Reem Shilleh and Mohanad Yaqubi. The collective aims to cast new light upon historic works related to Palestine and the region, to engender support for film preservation, and to investigate archival practices. Their long-term and ongoing projects explore this cine-historic field including digitally reissuing previously overlooked films, curating rare film screening cycles, subtitling rediscovered films, producing publications, and devising other forms of interventions. Formed in 2011, Subversive Film is based between Ramallah and Brussels.

Over the years, the films produced through and by Subversive Film have been screened at Toronto International Film Festival; Berlinale; International Film Festival Rotterdam; Carthage Film Festival, Tunis; Museum of the Moving Image, New York; and Viennale, Vienna, among others.

Joanne Nucho is an anthropologist and filmmaker. She has written extensively on the politics of the built environment as well as the breakdown of public and collective goods like electricity grids in Lebanon and California. Her film Narrow Streets of Bourj Hammoud, filmed in and around a suburb of Beirut, features a series of interviews with residents who use drawing as a way to engage the city as a palimpsest, and uncover layers of multiple displacement and migrations over the past century. 

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The program includes the following films:

Blown by the Wind

Jack Madvo, 1971, 18 min, Lebanon

A series of vibrant drawings painted by Palestinian children are brought to life in Blown By the Wind. The montaged still images offer glimpses into their everyday lives, memories, and imaginations following their displacement and search for refuge in Lebanon after the Six Day War in 1967. The film was officially selected for the Venice Film Festival and won awards at the Leipzig Film Festival, as well as in Czechoslovakia and Tunis.

The Field

Sabih Al-Zoohiri, 1977, 11 min, Iraq

This short fiction film, produced by the Iraqi Cinema and Theatre Institute, serves as a melodic expression of resistance. With no dialogue and no central character, it addresses the question of Palestine through a story of a farmer and his family, who are forced to stop ploughing their land when Israeli army vehicles suddenly arrive.

Kufr Shuba

Samir Nimr, 1975, 35 min, Lebanon

Produced by the Palestine Cinema Institute in Beirut directed by Iraqi filmmaker Samir Nimr, the film is titled after the small village of Kufr Shuba in South Lebanon–site of a powerful act of solidarity between the Lebanese people and the Palestinian resistance following a battle that devastated the village. The film stands as a poetic testament to the steadfastness of a people, their liberation struggle, and their love for the land.