Palestinian Filmmaker Azza El-Hassan’s Journey in Discovery of Her Own People

By Samaa Abu Sharar

Azza El-Hassan’s life could be a film in itself. The young Palestinian filmmaker, however, has made the life of others the subject of her own films, and her specialty is making films about the Palestinian people.

The budding young director recently won the Jury Special Award for “News Time” at the Arab Screen Independent Film Festival held in Doha, Qatar. The documentary, which deals with the current intifada in the Palestinian territories, drew the attention of festival panelists, participants and critics alike. “News Time” is, in a sense, the crowning achievement of Azza’s young career, since she had always dreamed of growing up to show the plight of her people through that most powerful medium of filmmaking.

Azza first came face to face with displacement and war shortly after she was born in Jordan in 1971. Because of the civil war raging there at the time, the young girl was quickly carted off to Lebanon with her family. There they spent the next 10 years in the thralls of another desperate situation—for Lebanon was in the midst of its own civil war.

Because of the war, a child in Lebanon was anything but a child. But Azza made the best of it, attending school when the situation allowed and working as a volunteer in hospitals when war conditions worsened. During Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Azza, 11 at the time, was probably the youngest hospital volunteer in the country, running from one injured victim to another trying to help.

Soon after, her family moved back to Amman, where Azza again had to readjust. She was still going to school, but the difference between Beirut and Amman was almost surreal, given the stark contrast between the horror and conflict on the streets of Beirut and the almost sedate atmosphere of Jordan in the 1980s.

Through it all, however, the gravity of the Palestinian people’s situation, and the awesome scenes of death, destruction and injury, and Israeli planes above the Beirut skyline, left an indelible imprint on the young woman’s mind.

Shortly after she finished high school, Azza made the most important decision of her life. Despite her parent’s disapproval, she was determined to study filmmaking. Little did she know then that this would be the beginning of a journey of discovery of her homeland, Palestine, and its people, and of the hidden details of a Palestine she grew up only hearing about.

In 1996, and after graduating with an M.A. in television documentary film from London University’s Goldsmith College, Azza made another momentous decision: to settle in Palestine. She chose Ramallah, which recently had come under Palestinian Authority control as a result of the 1993 Oslo accords.

She not only launched her film career in Ramallah, but also the search for her identity. “Being born in the Diaspora, my identity was always threatened since it meant I belonged to a country—a space—that was in fact unknown to me,” she explained.

As a result, much of Azza’s work speaks of the complex and compelling relationship between Palestinians born in the Diaspora and those born in the homeland.

As time progressed, Azza’s relationship with the homeland began to alter. “As my relationship with this space changed, my work and my definition of my identity also changed,” she noted.

The young filmmaker was developing an interest in the people who inhabited this formerly unknown space. “In my early work, I took long shots of the space, as if I was celebrating my return and discovery of my Palestine,” she said. “Later on, I began to focus on the occupants of this space.”

Five years later, Azza’s relationship with Palestine has assumed yet another dimension. Less emotional and more pragmatic, she views both her country and people in a different light. As she describes it, her work today is of someone who lives in Palestine and thus feels free to resent yet appreciate her surroundings.

Since the eruption of the al-Aqsa intifada, Azza found herself a prisoner of events. Due to the political developments on the ground, her film projects were immediately put on hold. It was time for reporting news, not making documentary films.

She has managed, however, to produce another compelling film on the current intifada. “News Time” tells the story of her neighborhood under the intifada. Besides herself, Azza’s personal world includes her landlord and his wife, Abu Khalil and Umm Khalil, who have been in love for the past 25 years, and four children—Nidal, Kifah, Shadi and Fadi—who spend their time playing in the streets of Ramallah.

With her camera, Azza takes the viewer on a devastating tour of the effects of the intifada on daily life in Ramallah. “These people, myself included, suddenly found the little details of their lives being changed and determined by the violent events on the ground,” she said.

The intifada stops being solely a national issue and becomes a personal one. “News Time” shows how Palestinians are forced to adjust their lives according to the harsh reality of the uprising. As the director describes it, “Occupation is invading my own private space and that of others around me and is dictating my life choices.”

Azza had another reason for making her film, however: outrage at the way Palestinians were being portrayed in the international media, as mere numbers worth nothing. “When I first started filming ‘News Time,’” she said, “I was simply trying to resist the notion of death, which seemed to dominate the news. Just like everybody else, I resented the fact that the lives of Palestinians seemed worthless. Reporters were speaking of Palestinians’ deaths as if they were reporting the weather.”

Azza has not fallen into the trap of idealizing the intifada, however. On the contrary in her film Azza as well as her subjects speak of death and other disturbing consequences of the popular uprising. At one point, she speaks with Nidal, Kifah, Shadi and Fadi about the deaths of their friends during the clashes. Toward the end, she asks the four of them if she can come and film them a few years down the road. “If we are still alive,” comes the boys’ disturbing answer.

Although “News Time” realistically depicts the reality of war, it is not without humor. While one cries when the boys speak of their martyred friends, one giggles during a scene where Abu Khalil tries to kiss Umm Khalil and she refuses because Azza’s camera is rolling. “It’s all right, all the people of Ramallah know us,” Abu Khalil tells his wife.

The filmmaker admits she would not have been able to make this kind of film when she first arrived in Palestine. “News Time,” she explained, is the product of someone who lives and experiences life in all its painful and delightful moments in the occupied territories.

The film provided Azza the chance to explore anew the concept of identity. “I start the film with my childhood, showing footage of the war in Lebanon. I then invite the viewer into my new home, Palestine. However, during all this I retain my Palestinian identity, which is visible in my accent and my relationship with both countries.”

Over the past six years, Azza has managed to become one of Palestine’s few promising female directors. She has four other films to her credit: “The Place,” “Sinbad is a She,” “Title Deed from Moses,” and “Arab Women Speak Out”.

“News Time” is not only the story of the people of the intifada, it is the story of a young woman in search of her land, people and identity. This search continues to occupy her mind and spirit. “As long as national tragedies exist,” Azza El-Hassan noted, “little space is left for personal and private dilemmas.”

Samaa Abu Sharar is a free-lance journalist based in Amman.