The Toronto International Film Festival red carpet served as a backdrop for a protest calling for the end of the violence, death and destruction in Gaza on Friday at the world premiere of film that takes the audience back to the 1930s before the creation of the state of Israel, when the territory, then known as British Palestine, was under British colonial rule.
Palestine 36 screened at TIFF on Friday at Roy Thomson Hall, where the film’s star, Karim Daoud Anaya, posed with a plastic bag, dripping in fake blood, containing a camera and a Palestinian keffiyeh.
Other members of the cast and crew held up Palestinian flags and messages reading “Stop the genocide” at the premiere, which took pace exactly 700 days after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militant attack on Israel that preceded the ongoing Israeli military assault on Gaza.
Palestine 36 tells the story of a young man named Yusuf, played by Anaya, and other Palestinians navigating their lives amid the uprising against British colonial rule of the territory following the First World War.
The film stars a cast of international actors, including Jeremy Irons, Hiam Abbas and Liam Cunningham, along with many relatively unknown performers, and was shot entirely in the Middle East.
A rare look into the past
Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir, who directed the drama, told CBC News she leaned heavily on rare archive footage from the 1930s to depict the lives of Palestinians at the time.
She said it was “critical” to use the footage — which she colourized because she didn’t want the movie “to be something of the past” — to show that the struggle for Palestinian sovereignty is “still going on.”
The state of Israel was established in 1948, in the aftermath of the Second World War and the Holocaust, carving up the territory into what is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
The 1948 expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from their homes, which Palestinians refer to as the Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe), and subsequent conflicts in the decades that followed, dramatically altered the borders of what are now considered the Palestinian Territories.
Canada does not recognize the territory as an independent state, referring to Gaza and the occupied West Bank as the Palestinian Territories.
But Prime Minister Mark Carney said in August that Canada, along with several other countries including Australia, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom, would formally recognize Palestinian statehood at the UN General Assembly in New York later this month, subject to conditions.
If those conditions are met, these countries would join 147 of the 197 UN member nations that already recognize the state of Palestine.
Jacir says it was always a part of her plan to use archival shots, something that became even more necessary after the war began in 2023, requiring much of the production to move to Jordan.
“Once the genocide started and we weren’t able to shoot in certain places, it suddenly had another meaning,” she said, explaining that it allowed her to depict “places that were being destroyed and … didn’t exist anymore.”
In the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and abducted another 251, according to Israeli tallies. Many of the hostages were released in ceasefires or other deals. Of the 48 still held in Gaza, 20 are believed to be alive.
The ensuing Israeli campaign has since killed more than 63,000 people in the territory and wounded another 160,000, according to Palestinian health officials. Israeli airstrikes targeting residential areas, hospitals and refugee camps have resulted in widespread destruction.
WATCH | Director Annemarie Jacir speaks about the long road to make Palestine 36:
Filmmaker: ‘now is the time’ to speak up
Speaking to a Canadian Press reporter on the red carpet, Jacir said she “never imagined that I would be here during a genocide, a genocide of our own people.”
She called on governments around the world to take action. “If they are not saying anything and stopping this genocide, it’s a complete failure on their part,” she said.
“Now is the time. There is no tomorrow.”
While governments, including Canada’s, have not declared that Israel’s military actions in Gaza amount to genocide, several humanitarian organizations have done so.
South Africa also filed a genocide case with the International Court of Justice in January 2024.
Metro MorningWho decides when the word ‘genocide’ applies?
Earlier this week, members of the International Association of Genocide Scholars passed a resolution to recognize that Israel’s “policies and actions in Gaza” had met the legal definition set out in Article II of the 1948 United Nations convention on genocide.
The Israeli government has refuted this and also denied a recent famine confirmation from a UN-backed monitor.
Palestine 36 has been submitted for consideration as the official Palestinian submission for the international feature film category at next year’s Academy Awards.
Jacir’s previous features Salt of The Sea, When I Saw You and Wajib were also submitted for Oscar consideration.
Palestine 36 will screen again at the TIFF Lightbox on Sunday.
