He had just arrived from Paris, from his first solo-show in a gallery in the French gallery. He had exhibited the Palestinian Free State motive stamps from different countries that he had let produce, another piece of art happening from the side of the Palestinian artist, who is making himself a name outside his country in art circles. Talking about Paris, he also renamed Place de la République to Place de Hana Shalabi, to make us aware of the case of the Palestinian woman, who has hungerstriked for 38 days against the occupying country that has denied a courtcase to her and other Palestinians who were released as an exchange (!) for the Israeli soldier, Gilat Shalit, who was in Hamas custody for five years. The actions of visual artist activist Jarrar can be googled and there are lots og YouTube clips to find.

We met at the office of Idiomfilms in Ramallah to see a first draft of Jarrar’s first documentary, previously written about here. We watched a 75 mins. cut of a film that with its non-aggressive approach gives the viewer a unique account of the climbers, big and small, old and young, who go to Jerusalem illegally. To work first of all. It uses a non-linear structure, it has many angles and stylistical elements that wonderfully surprise you as a viewer, who is used to strong films in all genres, aggressive against the Israeli occupation. You have sometimes a clear laugh when you see the different ways of climbing, sometimes you laugh because of the absurdity, and sometimes you are moved and feel angry: this can not be true, this is not civilisation 2012! But it is.

The film is in post-production, money lacks for that part, applications have been sent to Sundance Documentary Fund and Tribeca… Festival people who read this, watch out for a fine film, well a more than a fine film is coming up this year by an amazing artist. Refreshing with that inspiration.

 

Khaled Jarrar: The Infiltrators (working title). Palestine, 2012. In post-production.

 

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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