A Silent-Film Festival Gives a Breathtaking Perspective on Palestine

""When we talk of this as a place of destruction, we turn these people into the other." This was how Jay Weissberg, the artistic director of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, held annually in Northern Italy, introduced one of the more emotional film experiences I've had this year. The occasion was a screening of Palestine: A Revised Narrative, built entirely around silent films from Palestine shot by the British army during World War I."

"Palestine: A Revised Narrative, which premiered at the Arab Film Festival in Berlin last year and screened at Pordenone last month, is presented as a "cine-concert," incorporating a live 30-minute performance by the Beirut-based musician and artist Cynthia Zaven alongside images edited down from silent newsreels of Palestine provided by Britain's Imperial War Museum. The "score" Zaven performs onstage is an ethereal combination of composed music and soundscapes created with the acclaimed Lebanese sound designer Rana Eid."

"These films were originally made to show the British advance through Palestine as they defeated the Ottomans, who had ruled the region for half a millennium. Zaven reedited the footage to shift the focus away from warfare and soldiers (including images of Field Marshal Edmund Allenby, the leader of the British expeditionary forces) and toward the people in the background of these events: the shepherds, fishermen, and ordinary humans caught"

Palestine: A Revised Narrative assembles century-old silent British army films from World War I into a new cine-concert centered on civilian lives. The work pairs edited footage from the Imperial War Museum with a 30-minute live performance by Lebanese musician Cynthia Zaven and sound designer Rana Eid. The score blends composed music, soundscapes, distant political speeches, and found audio of Haifa to create ethereal drones. The reediting shifts attention away from military leaders and battles toward shepherds, fishermen, and ordinary people glimpsed in the background. The result reads as a dreamy, moving travelogue with an implicit political stance.

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