At Toronto film festival, 'Palestine 36' tackles the past, echoes in the present
- Last updated: September 7, 2025 | 12:43
Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir set out to tell a story rooted in the past but reverberating in the present and, just maybe, giving hope for the future. "Palestine 36," which premiered on Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival, explores 1936 Palestine as it seethes under the British Mandate and as Jews fleeing Europe establish footholds near - and sometimes on - Arab land. Watermelon Pictures has the distribution rights in the US and Canada for the film, which is Palestine's Oscar submission this year.
The film is set nearly a century in the past but feels almost mercilessly contemporary, with its Palestinian protagonists fighting for their rights while beset by encroaching settlers and a harsh colonial power. When and whether to resist, what that resistance should look like, and what price it exacts, become contested questions.
"It was always a very contemporary story for me," Jacir told the media. "I never wanted it to feel like something of the past. But all those repercussions (of 1936), I mean, it sets the stage for everything we know today."
The film's messaging is potent, but not subtle: One character says to another, "Perhaps you should consider which side of history you want to be on"; over 119 minutes, the film tells its viewer the same thing. Its material echoes in the present. Nearly two years into Israel's bombardment of Gaza, more than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed, local health authorities say, with much of the enclave reduced to ruins and its residents facing a famine, according to international observers.
The Palestinian group Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli authorities. Israel's actions in Gaza have been called a genocide by scholars and rights groups, including some from Israel.
Jacir and her team were 10 months into pre-production, set to start shooting, when the events of October 7 and what followed upended their world and their work.
"We were in Bethlehem. And everybody had to be evacuated. ... Everything fell apart, and that's when all the darkness began. And it just got darker and darker and darker," she said.
"We have a first-world problem. Making a film when there's a genocide happening seems, really, like a privilege. But it was important for us. It was important for everybody. And it felt, now, even more important than ever, because we're artists, and that's what we do." Alongside stars including Jeremy Irons and Hiam Abbass, known for her role in "Succession," Saleh Bakri plays a Palestinian who feels compelled to fight back. He said people may feel they have no choice but to resist.
"Art is ... a form of resistance. But it is a soulful, living, form of resistance."
Reuters