Qais Al-Zubaidi

The films in the PLO Media Unit were supposed to show a self-determined image of Palestinian reality – and they went missing during the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. In a « road movie » from Palestine to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, director Azza El-Hassan follows the contradicting and confusing clues as to the whereabouts of the lost archive.

The Yazerli is the foreman who provides work to day laborers. The film’s poetic, non-narrative structure simulates the fractured thoughts of a young boy who is forced to leave school and find work on the docks. Using minimal dialogue but evocative music and sounds, separate vignettes introduce characters the boy encounters in a single workday. The filmmaker explores the child’s vivid imaginary world while tangibly conveying the physical harshness and repressed sexuality of a life spent in poverty and manual labor. Based on a novella by Hanna Mina.

The Yazerli is the foreman who provides work to day laborers. The film’s poetic, non-narrative structure simulates the fractured thoughts of a young boy who is forced to leave school and find work on the docks. Using minimal dialogue but evocative music and sounds, separate vignettes introduce characters the boy encounters in a single workday. The filmmaker explores the child’s vivid imaginary world while tangibly conveying the physical harshness and repressed sexuality of a life spent in poverty and manual labor. Based on a novella by Hanna Mina.

Using film footage from various sources, Kaiss al-Zubaidi creates a description of the everyday lives of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Through skilful montage, the constant latency of conflict and violence becomes a relationship between the images. Counter-Siege was awarded one of seven ‘Main Prizes’ by the international jury at the 1979 Oberhausen Short Film Festival.

Three Palestinian men strive to escape the hardships of life in a refugee camp. Under the scorching sun, the men enlist the help of an old man, Abu Al-Khaizuran, to smuggle them in an empty water tank across the desert.

A mamluk called Gaber, in order to take advantage of the rift between the Caliph of Baghdad and the prince he works for, volunteers to be a messenger for the prince. He also takes it as a chance to see his beloved Zomorod. Gaber suggests the prince write the message on his bald head, but when his hair grows the message disappears.

An oneiric film poem about a murder in occupied Palestine, in which Qais Al-Zubaidi used drawing, poetry, music, phonograph and pantomime with his technical virtuosity and formal expressionism. Featuring poetry from Mahmoud Darwish, Samih al-Qasim, and Tawfiq Ziad.

An oneiric film poem about a murder in occupied Palestine, in which Qais Al-Zubaidi used drawing, poetry, music, phonograph and pantomime with his technical virtuosity and formal expressionism. Featuring poetry from Mahmoud Darwish, Samih al-Qasim, and Tawfiq Ziad.

A revolutionary journalist tries to expose a corrupt, opportunistic politician who is making shady deals. The prominent politician tries to take revenge on him, using his intelligence and wide connections, by framing him in a murder that will silence him forever.

Directed by Qais Al-Zubaidi.

Directors belonging to the PLO film organisations were barred from entering territories under Israeli administration. Kais Al-Zubaidi sent a West-German film team into the territories occupied in 1967. They talked to Palestinian peasants and refugees and to Israeli settlers. The former have lost their fields and meadows and are to be driven further East from the camps in which they lived since 1948. The latter call their new settlement area “liberated land”.

Directed by Qais Al-Zubaidi.

Children express their experiences of war and diaspora through drawings and testimonials.

Children express their experiences of war and diaspora through drawings and testimonials.

al-Zubaidi uses GDR material to tell a rather linear story of Palestine, deploying the archive for illustration and evidence.

The film depicts the many Lebanese and Palestinian Resistance acts carried out by different factions against the Israeli occupation in Lebanon.

Directed by Qais Al-Zubaidi.

A film documenting Al-Sabineh camp for Palestinian refugees in Syria, with an unprecedented experience at the time, as he took the children after filming to show them the footage he filmed of them, the camp and its people, and recorded their reactions, laughter and speech, and added them to the film.

No synopsis available yet.

No synopsis available yet.