Samah Hijawi and Reem Shilleh took the Ramallah Clubs Network (of the Palestinian diaspora in the USA) as a starting point to reflect on the intricacies and complexities of the Palestinian diaspora and their manifestations. They will explore the experience of being in diaspora and exile and how this formulates one’s relationship to home and homeland. Often, members of the diaspora reconnect through community centres, festivals and events in order to continue their cultural practices, and keep the community connected. But beyond sharing food, dance and conversation, what intangible elements do these gatherings transmit? What are the other forms and tools that are used to understand this convoluted relationship between here and there? In the face of Palestine’s settler colonial reality how have they contributed to direct and indirect forms of resistance, narrative formations and acts of remembering?

In a series of conversations broadcast online on Radio Al Hara every Thursday of the month of October, Hijawi and Shilleh will be speaking with colleagues, artists, filmmakers, social activists, and friends from different geographies, whose work is connected to or influenced by their diasporic/exilic experience and desire to reconnect.

EN - In the second episode of The Ramallah Club Network, Samah Hijawi and Reem Shilleh are in conversation with the filmmaker Michel Khleifi about memory, collective and personal, its relationship to where we are geographically and his work, particularly his 1985 film Maaloul Celebrates Its Destruction.

FR - Dans le second épisode de The Ramallah Club Network, Samah Hijawi et Reem Shilleh abordent avec le réalisateur Michel Khleifi la notion de mémoire, aussi bien personnelle que collective, et sa relation avec notre le lieu où nous nous trouvons. La conversation aborde aussi son travail cinématographique, et plus spécifiquement son film de 1985 Maaloul Celebrates Its Destruction.

NL - In de tweede aflevering van The Ramallah Club Network gaan Samah Hijawi en Reem Shilleh in gesprek met de filmmaker Michel Khleifi over het geheugen, collectief en persoonlijk, en zijn relatie tot waar we ons geografisch bevinden. Dit gesprek zoomt eveneens in op zijn cinematografisch werk, meer specifiek op zijn film Maaloul Celebrates Its Destruction uit 1985.

A project by Samah Hijawi and Reem Shilleh, initiated and coproduced by Kunstenfestivaldesarts 2020 in the context of The Diasporic Schools / Production: Kunstenwerkplaats

More info: https://kfda.be/en/festivals/2020-edition/programme/the-ramallah-club-network/