2022 ‘Al-Yad Al-Khadra’ Directed by Jumana Manna
Foragers interweaves documentary and fiction to report on a searing conflict between the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and Palestinian foragers. Through an elaborate and elegant composition, the film successfully captures the inherited love, resilience and knowledge of these traditions, over an eminently political backdrop.
USA
USA
MIFF has always had good documentaries about food, in some years a whole food and drink stream. Jumana Manna’s film is a hybrid documentary that uses archival footage, cinema vérité footage and scripted elements to tell a story about the Israeli government’s attempt to stop Palestinians from foraging for herbs In Galilee, the Golan Heights and Jerusalem.
The ostensible reason is to protect “endangered” plants, in particular Za’atar (thyme) and akkoub. Since everything in this part of the world is political, the Palestinians claim to have been harvesting these herbs sustainably for centuries and deny that they are “endangered” and three Israeli kibbutzes now farm these herbs commercially (one with labelling that makes it appear to be a Palestinian product)…
went to MoMA PS1 with work today and i caught this. everyone else left 30 minutes before i did to go get drinks but i was completely enamored. equal parts poignant and pretty.
Foragers opened the 2023 Chicago Palestine Film Festival. I find that documentaries rarely stir me, but Foragers earns a well-deserved 5 stars. Shots linger on the bodies and the Earth that they forage, yet Foragers never feels alien — we're treated to hilarious and tender scenes: Palestinians eating mujadarra and discussing their meat consumption habits, a man who coos at his dog named Ma'moul (cookie). God this film is good. In one of my favorite scenes, greens are laid out and sorted to the opening beats of White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. As Palestinians repeatedly face punishment and fines for foraging spices and vegetables used for their cuisine, the song feels sadly appropriate.
This film is gorgeous beyond words. Hope it gets a wider release, it is documentary par excellence.
In her November 2020 piece for e-flux journal, Jumana Manna, when writing about preservation laws under Zionism, remarks that “...every act of protection is accompanied by an erasure of another kind. The key question is often not whether to safeguard, but how and at what cost.”
As sickening acts of violence and forceful removal of land continue to be perpetuated by the Israeli government, Manna’s “Foragers” reminds viewers that colonizer destruction as a weapon of nationalism works as a multifaceted force, attacking communities and cultures in nearly every capacity, from lavishly funded acts of grizzly military might, all the way to the stranglehold and appropriation of access to akkoub and za’atar, plants that are intrinsically linked to Palestinian food and…
filmmaking as worldmaking as materialising theory as resistance as celebration as insistence on survival
such an honour to have programmed this as take one action film festival’s 2022 opening film. viva viva palestina
The verdure is almost tangible. I felt folded into the foragers’ relationship with the land - had the (punishable) instinct to try to pluck some plants through the screen.
Info dump from director q&a: Foraging ban enacted in 1977 by Israel’s minister of agriculture, Israeli za’atar plantation established the following year (and held a monopoly for years after), 100s of thousands of fines/penalties issued to Palestinians and none to Israelis.
Also: the elderly married couple foraging in the film are her parents (and a large part of the film’s inspiration) - and that while they were filming, Israeli park officers drove up in their Jeep (to the crew and their set cop-Jeep!) and complained about the presence of foragers, to which the crew replied, “Yes it’s terrible!”
ALFILM Berlin @ Arsenal
