A sold-out crowd packed the Centro Sociale in Fiorentino for the first of four evenings in Dalle radici al presente: un secolo di cinema, archivi e inchieste sulla Palestina (From the roots to the present: a century of cinema, archives and investigations on Palestine), the film series organised by the San Marino per la Palestina collective together with the Circolo Sei Più of Fiorentino. The series opened on September 30 with The Bibi Files, screened simultaneously in more than one hundred and thirty Italian cinemas, and will close on November 3.
The documentary gathers footage from the interrogations of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his associates. The screening was followed by a live link-up with director Alexis Bloom, investigative journalist Giulia Innocenzi and Fatto Quotidiano deputy editor Maddalena Oliva, shared with all participating cinemas.
The programme continues with three more titles, all at the Centro Sociale in Fiorentino. On Tuesday, October 20, it’s the turn of The Sea, in which the sea becomes an image of denied freedom. On Tuesday, October 27, No Other Land arrives — the documentary on the occupation of the West Bank that won an award at the Berlinale and later the Oscar, made by a joint Palestinian-Israeli collective. On Tuesday, November 3, the series closes with Palestine 36, a historical drama set during the great Arab revolt against the British Mandate.
Outside the main series but along the same lines is a double screening of NAZA, scheduled for Tuesday, October 6, and Wednesday, October 7, at 9pm at the Cinema Teatro Concordia in Borgo Maggiore, organised by the Cultural Institutes. The documentary, by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor — two of the four authors of No Other Land — is built around nighttime conversations with Israeli soldiers and officials about the mechanisms of destruction in Gaza. The only documentary in competition at the last Venice Film Festival, it won the Special Jury Prize and was released in Italy in late September in more than five hundred cinemas. On both evenings, the collective will be present with an information stand and a fundraiser for the Palestinian population.
The Fiorentino initiative is supported by the Secretariat of State for Foreign Affairs, the Secretariat of State for Education and Culture, and the Secretariat of State for Territory and Environment, Agriculture, Civil Protection and Relations with the A.A.S.L.P.
