Cinema as the Space to Transgress Palestine’s Territorial Trap

Abstract

In this article, Palestinian national cinema is interpreted through the lens of a ‘structure of feeling’ in order to address the theme of Palestinians reconstituting themselves in relation to changing geographies. Palestinians must constantly negotiate the tensions between mobility and immobility, whether in exile or diaspora, inside Israel, or within the Territories. Connecting these lived geographies to film, the article argues that analytic frameworks mistaking the national for a territorially-defined and stable order are ill-suited for a treatment of Palestinian national cinema. Touching on film production, narrative tropes and filmic locations in various films, the paper argues that cinema serves as a space to transgress Palestine’s territorial trap. Cinema as a structure of feeling allows for a more elastic, transgressive and encompassing understanding of Palestine and Palestinians.