Dans le cadre du Festival Alimenterre, la Commission ISPAL de l’UPJB vous présente le film « Cueilleurs » (2022, 64′), réalisé par Jumana Manna.
Synopsis
Sur le plateau du Golan, en Galilée et à Jérusalem, ramasser du za’atar (thym) et l’akkoub (artichaut) est passible de lourdes amendes. Entremêlant documentaire et fiction, les mains dans le parfum du za’atar ou les piquants de l’akkoub, Cueilleurs décrit l’impact dramatique des lois israéliennes de protection de la nature sur les traditions immémoriales de la culture palestinienne et sur les cueilleuses et cueilleurs de plantes sauvages.
Informations pratiques
Quand ? Le vendredi 13 février, à 19h30
Où ? A l’UPJB, rue de la Victoire 61, 1060 Saint-Gilles
Pour qui ? Projection ouverte à toutes et tous ! Sans réservation, la billetterie se fait sur place (prix repris plus bas).
Présentation du film et de la cinéaste (en anglais)
« Foragers » depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in
Palestine/Israel with wry humor and a meditative pace. Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee and Jerusalem, it moves between fiction, documentary and archival footage
to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs. The restrictions prohibit the collection of the artichoke, like « akkoub » and za’atar (thyme), and have resulted in fines and trials for hundreds caught collecting these native plants. For Palestinians, these laws constitute an ecological veil for legislation that further alienates them from their land while Israeli state representatives insist on their scientific expertise and duty to protect. Following the plants from the wild to the kitchen, from the chases between the foragers and the nature patrol, to courtroom defenses, « Foragers » captures the inherited love, joy and knowledge in these traditions alongside their resilience to the prohibitive law. By reframing the terms and constraints of preservation, the film raises questions around the politics of extinction, namely who determines what is made extinct and what gets to live on.
Commissioned by BAMPFA The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, BAK basis
voor actuele kunst, Utrecht; and The Toronto Biennale (2022). Supported by Arab Fund for Arts and Culture – AFAC, The Fritt Ord Foundation, Arts Council Norway – Kulturrådet.
Artist bio
Jumana Manna is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her work explores how power is articulated,
focusing on the body, land and materiality in relation to colonial inheritances and histories of place. Through sculpture, filmmaking, and occasional writing, Manna deals with the paradoxes of preservation practices, particularly within the fields of architecture, agriculture and law. Her practice considers the tension between the modernist traditions of categorisation and conservation and the unruliness of ruination, life and its regeneration. Jumana was raised in Jerusalem and lives in Berlin.
