Route 181: Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-israel — Center for Palestine Studies

About The Film

Walls continue to be raised, barbed-wires laid down, new borders succeeding those already present in the collective unconscious of both peoples. What can cinema do before a situation so desperately devoid of hope? Sivan and Khleifi, faced with the tragic torments shaking their societies, come together in a sort of filmic act of faith. They believe that the only "realistic" solution rests in the prospect of a binational state where citizens share equal rights and duties for peaceful coexistence.

DOAN | Filmmakers

Michel Khleifi

Michel Khleifi was born in Nazareth in 1950. In 1970 he traveled to Belgium where he studied television and theatre directing. Considered the founder of modern Palestinian cinema, Khleifi produced and directed several full-length features and documentaries for international release and broadcast. His previous documentary feature, Fertile Memory (1980), was the first Palestinian film to be shown at the Cannes FF and was a groundbreaking work, both on a political and aesthetic level, treating the struggle for women's freedom and emancipation, across the generations and under occupation, in a haunting lyrical style that became all his own.

Michel Khleifi & Eyal Sivan -- Documentary, 270’ (Germany/France: 2003)