In recent years, films have been the primary lens through which the world has watched the daily atrocities inflicted upon the Palestinian people. The torture, incarceration, and displacement under the Israeli occupation have been recorded and broadcasted in an attempt to convey the weight of oppression and the struggle that Palestinians continue to face in the 21st century.
Buthina Canaan Khoury, an independent Palestinian filmmaker, coincidentally kicked off her photojournalism career at the onset of the First Intifada. Since then, she has wielded her craft to tell the missing stories of Palestinian women in the narrative of resistance and liberation.
“Before I’d met the women I interviewed, their stories had already impacted me.”
Khoury, energetic and passionate in her commitment to providing Palestinian women with the space to speak for themselves, directed and produced the 2005 documentary Women in Struggle. The film follows testimonies from four previously incarcerated Palestinian women, whose crimes vary in severity, recalling their experiences in Israeli prisons and the lasting effects it has had on their personal lives. As young women, they had actively participated, either peacefully or violently, in the national fight for Palestinian independence and freedom. Their capture became fables spread throughout Palestinian communities to emphasize the Israeli brutality and to deter youth from joining the resistance.
For Buthina, these were the stories that needed to be covered and delivered in such a way that anybody around the world could relate to–or, at the very least, evoke the misery and devastation such conditions wreak unto the individual and their community. After being denied entry into Israeli prisons for research, she spent years between Jordan and Palestine interviewing young women, working ladies, women living in refugee camps, and first-generation freedom fighting women to create a comprehensive portrayal of the Palestinian female experience.
“It is important for me to tell the truth, and for the people to feel this truth.”
It is clear to Khoury’s audience that prison sentences, often indicted without trial, are part and parcel of the intergenerational and intercommunal trauma inflicting Palestinian women today. Mothers must cope with the unnerving uncertainty of their child’s safety whilst imprisoned young women bear their children under the surveillance and torture of Israeli forces. The four women in Khoury’s documentary speak about the impact that the events of Deir Yassine or the 1967 War had on their politicization. From hosting, feeding, and sheltering to training, planning, and bombing checkpoints, each of them unapologetically committed their life to the resistance and anticipated the consequences.
One of the women, Rasmieh Odeh, recounts the torture methods used during the initial weeks of detention and interrogation. She had been stripped of her clothes and displayed to a group of male prisoners, some of whom were part of her own community.
“But I’ll never forget when they brought in my father while I was naked and deranged, forcing him to sleep with me as a bid to confess the location of hidden weapons.”
Khoury does not camouflage or gloss over these truths. One can leave prison, she says, but prison does not leave you. She provides her subjects with space they were once denied to openly discuss the injustices they have faced.
Whilst Palestinian stories have made headway on the global stage, with social media providing artists and activists with the tools to broadcast their realities, the blueprint has come from men and women like Khoury who had to navigate a world where their own accounts and skills were marginalized and distorted. She remains hopeful for the upcoming generation who are already using the acquired resources and skills to try and mend the past.
“To me, art is one of the greatest gifts God has imparted unto the people of Earth. It is timeless.”
As such, she is confident in the choice she made many years ago to pursue a career in filmmaking, one that her father warned her would require all her time, without the promise of success.