FIGHT THE POWER: PALESTINE 36 INCL. INTRODUCTION

For this edition of Fight The Power: Films of Resistance, presented in collaboration with the Palestinian Film Festival Amsterdam, we’re screening the searing new film by Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir, Palestine 36. Set in British-ruled Palestine in 1936, it follows a young man caught between his village and a restless Jerusalem as the country rises up in the Great Revolt — the largest and longest Palestinian uprising against British colonial rule.

As villages organise and strike, the British answer with collective punishment, home demolitions and mass detention without trial, laying down the machinery of occupation that shapes Palestinian life to this day. Rejecting the distance of the history book, Jacir draws a direct line from 1936 to the present — to the partition of Palestinian land, and to the system that now sustains an ongoing genocide in Gaza.

The screening will open with an introduction from Özge Calafato, writer, curator, academic, and advisor to the Palestinian Film Festival Amsterdam.

About the speaker

Özge Calafato is a writer, curator, and academic, and a Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). She has served as Programming Manager for the Abu Dhabi Film Festival (ADFF) and as a committee member for the SANAD Development and Post-Production Fund. From 2014 to 2020, she was Assistant Director of Akkasah: Center for Photography at NYU Abu Dhabi. Calafato has also worked as a programmer and consultant for numerous film festivals and institutions. Since 2024, she has been an advisor to the Palestinian Film Festival Amsterdam.