Traces of a Revolution: In Search of the Palestinian Film Archive

This paper analyzes two documentaries that examine the legacy of the Palestinian Film Unit: Azza El-Hassan’s Kings and Extras: Digging for a Palestinian Image (2004) and Off Frame AKA Revolution Until Victory by MohanadYaqubi (2015). Relying on recently found footage as well as interviews and personal accounts, the documentaries recount the importance of the collective’s archive and the impact it had on creating the image of the revolutionary Palestinian. I argue that rather than dwelling on the loss of a Palestinian image, the filmmakers move beyond the impulse to physically locate the archive, providing sites of regeneration that allow alternative narratives to emerge instead. Through the filmmakers’ dialectic disruption of their own attempt to restore the archive, both films pose highly complex questions about the meaning ofthe photographic image and its potential in effecting social or political change.