This is history in the making. Recently, Netflix has decided to put forward a debut movie by director Darin J. Sallam about a girl's story of the Nakba. The girl, Farha, wants to further her education but with the start of the atrocities that take place at the hands of the Israelis that still continues to this day is unable to do so and instead witness one of the greatest and most brutal ethnic cleansing. This is a narrative that has been missing in mass media for a very long time and now we get to see the Palestine voice being raised in unity through this piece. Mass appreciation has erupted from Palestinians and pro-Palestinians alike for the movie that portrays the historical and unending trauma and plight of the Palestinians. The movie follows Farha at age 14 when the Nakba or displacement of 700,000 Palestinians was forcefully done by Israeli forces. Farha is locked in a room by her father and forced to watch Israeli troops decimate her entire family.
“The story traveled over the years to reach me. It stayed with me. When I was a child, I had this fear of closed, dark places and I kept thinking of this girl and what happened to her.” - Darin J. Sallam.
Yet while there is much praise to be found for the movie by the Muslim world and sympathizers, Israeli people and officials condemn the narrative for inciting tensions and not being a true portrayal of the circumstances. Many statements have come from high ranking officials that denounce the movie and it's messages calling it
"libel and lies" - Cultural Minister of Israel.
Despite Israeli insistence for Netflix to take down the movie and for it to be removed from the Oscars, the movie is quickly gaining a lot of traction. Immigrant Palestinian social media influencers are urging their followers to watch the movie so they might educate themselves about the Nakba and the events that transpired during and after it. Here is one such influencers request for the masses to show support for the film.
Farha is truly is a hauntingly beautiful piece that evokes empathy and really shows the cruelty and violence of the Nakba.
Brilliantly written! I think the coupling of education with conflict, political positionality and urban infrastructure is an interesting nexus you have written the blog on. I think these three facets are part of the larger superstructure which Marx calls culture and how they become about power relations and hegemony is an interesting contrast which can be based from you blog.