On the website of Palestine Cinema (https://www.palestinecinema.com/), you can find most films that have been made about Palestine. Since it is a long list of films, DSP made a selection of movies that student groups and other organizers can use during events and to educate yourself, in addition to how/where to find the movie. 

The recommended movies are divided over the following themes: Israeli Apartheid Week, Right to Education, Prisons and Prisoners, BDS, Displacement and Migration, Context and War Crimes, Israeli Society, 1948 Nakba. If you have any recommendations or if you’re producing something and want it to be posted on the website, please contact dutchscholarspalestine@gmail.com.

Theme 1: Israeli Apartheid Week

Occupation 101

2006, documentary, 88 min.

A thought-provoking and powerful documentary film on the current and historical root causes of the occupation of Palestine and U.S. political involvement.

Available on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD33k0Yq1Ng. 

Jaffa, the Orange’s Clockwork 

2009, documentary, 89 min.

A journey from the harbor town of Jaffa to the Jaffa orange, a fruit through which the Israeli filmmaker examines the occupation of Palestine.

Available on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/jaffaeng buy 9,99 EUR. Rent 4,99 EUR. 

The Present 

2020, fiction, 24 min.

Yusef and his young daughter set out in the West Bank to buy his wife a gift on their wedding anniversary.

Available on Netflix.

Theme 2: Right to Education

The School at Al Khan Al Ahmar  

2017, documentary, 17 min.

In this film about the Palestinian Bedouin village of Al Khan al Ahmar, human rights academic Dr. Alice Panepinto and film-maker Helen Eisler tell the story of a West Bank school facing demolition and the impact on the community around it. 

Available at https://www.jahalin.org/videos/the-school-at-al-khan-al-ahmar/.

Light and Fire 

2012, documentary, 11 min.

What is the path of a Jerusalemite student going from his home in East Jerusalem to the University campus in Abu Dis? The film accompanies one student and shows how the wall and the checkpoints have become an inseparable part of his daily life.

Available at https://vimeo.com/34786688 (need a vimeo account).

Theme 3: Prisons and Prisoners

3000 Nights

2015, fiction, 99 min.

Wrongly accused, a Palestinian newlywed is incarcerated in an Israeli high-security prison and soon discovers that she's pregnant. Based on real events.

Available on Netflix.

Theme 4: BDS

Boycott 

2021, documentary, 73 min.

A legal thriller with “accidental plaintiffs” at the center of the story, ‘Boycott’ is a bracing look at the far-reaching implications of anti-boycott legislation and an inspiring tale of everyday Americans standing up to protect our rights in an age of shifting politics and threats to freedom of speech.

Available for payment: https://justvision.org/boycott#tools. 

The wanted 18

2014, documentary, 75 minutes.

This movie tries to bring some humor into a ghastly situation. A Palestinian village (legally) buys 18 cows from Israel. The venture is a success. The Palestinians have their own milk supply, so they no longer have to buy Israeli milk. However, the success leads to the downfall of their project, because the Israelis decide that owning cows is illegal, and they start to hunt for them. 

Available on Amazon Prime Video. Buy ￡9.99, rent ￡4.49. 

Theme 5: Refugees and Migration

A Man Returned 

2016, documentary, 30 min.

Reda is 26 years old. His dreams of escaping the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain El-Helweh ended in failure after three years trapped in Greece. He returned with a heroin addiction to life in a camp being torn apart by internal strife and the encroachment of war from Syria. Against all odds he decides to marry his childhood sweetheart; a love story, bittersweet as the camp itself.

Available on Netflix and Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/amanreturned?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=12803452 rent 3,99 EUR.

Children of Shatila

1998, documentary, 47 minutes.

Farah and Issa, two streetwise children living in Beirut's Palestinian Shatila refugee camp, use their imaginations and creativity to come to terms with the realities of growing up in a refugee camp that has survived massacre, siege, and starvation.

Available on Netflix.

A World not Ours 

2012, documentary, 93 min.

An intimate, and often humorous, portrait of three generations of exile in the refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh, in southern Lebanon. Based on a wealth of personal recordings, family archives, and historical footage, the film is a sensitive, and illuminating study of belonging, friendship, and family in the lives of those for whom dispossession is the norm, and yearning their daily lives.

Available on Netflix.

Theme 6: Context / war crimes

5 Broken Cameras

2011, documentary, 53 min.

When his fourth son, Gibreel, is born, Emad, a Palestinian villager, gets his first camera. In his village, Bil'in, a separation barrier is being built and the villagers start to resist this decision. For more than five years, Emad films the struggle, which is led by two of his best friends, alongside filming how Gibreel grows. Very soon it affects his family and his own life. Daily arrests and night raids scare his family; his friends, brothers and himself are either shot or arrested. One camera after another is shot at or smashed. Each of the 5 cameras tells part of his story.

Available on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZU9hYIgXZw. 

Jenin, Jenin 

2002, documentary, 54 min.

Documentary about the 2002 deadly confrontations between armed Israeli soldiers and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

Available on the IDFA website: https://www.idfa.nl/en/film/3f605239-ad82-43df-b029-17498c52e3ed/jenin-jenin. 

Born in Gaza 

2014, documentary, 78 min.

This documentary film focuses on the violence of the occupation of Palestine and its effects on the children of Gaza. The documentary follows the story of about ten children who tell what their daily life is like after the horror of the war in Gaza in the summer of 2014.

Available on Netflix.

Gaza Fights for Freedom

2019, documentary, 84 min.

This documentary was filmed during the height of the Great March of Return protests in Gaza. It features exclusive footage of demonstrations during which 200 unarmed civilians have been killed by Israeli snipers since March 30 of 2018.

Available on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnZSaKYmP2s.

Theme 7: Occupied Society

Le Fils de l'autre (Another’s son)

2012, fiction, 101 min.

Just as Joseph is about to start his military service with the Israeli army, he discovers that he is not his parents' biological son and that he was confused at birth with Yacine, the child of a Palestinian family from the West Bank. This revelation profoundly changes the lives of both families and forces them to look at their own identities, values and beliefs from a completely new light.

Available on Amazon Prime Video: https://www.cineart.nl/films/le-fils-de-lautre.

Forever Pure 

2016, documentary, 85 min.

In January 2013, a secretive transfer deal transported two Muslim players into the heart of Israel and the Jewish-oriented Beitar Jerusalem F.C., leading to the most racist campaign in Israeli sport. One season and one football team in crisis, as power, money, and politics fuel a club spiraling out of control.

Available on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/169237275. 

Objector 

2019, documentary, 75 min.

Like all Israeli youth, Atalya is obligated to become a soldier. Unlike most, she questions the practices of her country's military, and becomes determined to challenge this rite of passage. Despite her family's political disagreements and personal concerns, she refuses military duty and is imprisoned for her dissent. Her courage moves those around her to reconsider their own moral positions and personal power. OBJECTOR follows Atalya to prison and beyond, offering a unique window into the current situation in Palestine from the perspective of a young woman who seeks truth and takes a stand for justice.

Available on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/objectordoc rent 3,49 EUR, buy 8,59 EUR.

Skies above Hebron

2020, documentary, 56 min.

This film is a coming of age story depicting three boys coping, each in his own way, with physical and mental obstacles in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. It shows the boys’ challenges and dreams over a timespan of 5 years.

Available on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/skiesabovehebron rent 4,25 US dollars, buy 8,52 US dollars.

Theme 8: Nakba 1948

Tantura 

2022, documentary, 95 min.

In the war of 1948, hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated. Israelis call it “The War of Independence.” Palestinians call it “Nakba.” The film examines one village- Tantura and why "Nakba" is taboo in Israeli society.

Available on Journetman.tv: https://www.journeyman.tv/film/8315/tantura#payments_modal_on rent 4,50 EUR, buy 7.00 EUR.

Farha 

2021, fiction, 92 min.

An historical account of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe). About a teenage Palestinian girl wanting to further her education. Unfortunately, armed troops enter her and other villages and threaten to kill them unless they leave. This is the story of how a brutal and inhumane occupation started and is today, still happening.

Available on Netflix.

Stranger in my Home 

2007, documentary, 37 min.

‘Stranger in My Home’ relates the stories of eight Palestinian Jerusalemite families that were twice turned into refugees in their own city: in 1948 and again in 1967. After 40 years, they recall the events that occurred in the Moghrabi Quarter of Jerusalem during the 1967 war and led to their second dispossession at the hands of the Israeli government. Each family then travels to see its original house which was seized and occupied in the war of 1948.

Available on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKY9a2S2yk4. 

Road to Sufsaf 

2017, documentary, 52 min.

Ali Zeidan, a Palestinian engineer born in Al Sufsaf, reconstructs the map of his village. Al Sufsaf was the last village that fell back in 1948 under the Zionist forces. The story starts with ex Prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, quoting “adults will die and young people will forget.” Ali, with a group of 3rd generation refugees, decides to fight history through memory and time, bringing their village back to life.

Available on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIzUwDzyAgk.

The Great Book Robbery

2007-2012, documentary, 57 min.

The Great Book Robbery is a powerful and poignant chronicle of cultural destruction. It tells the story of the 70,000 Palestinian books that were looted by the newly formed State of Israel in 1948. The film weaves together a range of storylines to create a dramatic, engaging, and deeply emotional structure. The interviews in the film focus on first-hand accounts and cultural analyses that contextualize the book theft within a larger historical and cultural framework, shedding new light on the Palestinian tragedy of 1948 and its impact on culture.

Available on Youtube.