Three Promises

Three Promises is the story of a mother and her camera, of a son and his suppressed memories, and of an entire country. At the start of the 2000s, while the Israeli army is retaliating against the second intifada in the West Bank, Suha films her daily family life, punctuated by frequent trips underground and overwhelmed by the anguish of her two young children. At every moment of intense danger, she promises God that she will leave if they survive. In 2017, her son, the director of this film, discovers this archive and reconnects with this suppressed past, wondering with his mother what drove her to record a daily life of suffering, a stolen childhood, and why she delayed fleeing, paralyzed by the hope for change and burdened by the impossible choice between physical safety and emotional upheaval. While on the surface there emerges the heartrending portrait of everyday life in times of war, it is the staggering beauty of a mother’s love that is revealed between the lines. Blending the voice of the present with impressive family footage, Yousef completes the story begun by Suha, thus averting the act of forgetting, both personal and collective.

our songs were ready for all wars to come is an experimental film of choreographed scenes based on documented folk tales from Palestine. The perforated edge of the film, occasionally silhouetted by flashes of light, highlights the nature of the work as a mediated document. Images of women performing draw connections between latent stories of water wells and communal rituals associated with disappearance, mourning and death. The only narration in the film is a song, which is sung by Palestinian singer Maya Khaldi. Its lyrics are a collage of different folk tales. How can folklore become a common emancipatory tool for people to overturn dominant discourses, reclaim their history and land, and rewrite reality as they know it?