Hyde Park Picture House to host screening of rare archival Palestinian film clips, for first time in decades

Hyde Park Picture House to host screening of rare archival Palestinian film clips, for first time in decades.

This weekend, Leeds’ Hyde Park Picture House will host a screening of archival clips, unseen for 50 years.

As part of the event ‘Militant Palestinian Cinema… In a Day’, the cinema will be hosting a special screening on Saturday, 18th October.

The event will last throughout the day, showcasing restored clips from films made in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

What will be showing?

Some clips will not have been shown since their original underground showings during the height of the Palestinian liberation movement. Many have been restored and digitised through an extensive collaborative effort, involving archivists, film preservation experts, and Palestinian cultural institutions. This recovery follows decades of damage, fragmentation, and near-loss.

“These films were made under extraordinary circumstances – often smuggled across borders, screened in secret, and deliberately suppressed…That we can now see them is nothing short of miraculous,” said Saeed Taji Farouky, the Palestinian-Egyptian-British filmmaker hosting the event.

Why are these films so important?

“What’s striking about these films is how innovative they were,” Farouky explains. “Palestinian filmmakers were experimenting with form and technique in ways that influenced documentary cinema globally – yet their work has been systematically erased from film history. This day is about reclaiming that legacy.”

The Palestine Film Unit – a collective of filmmakers working with the Palestinian liberation movement – has compiled these archival clips to represent an underrepresented, yet crucial chapter in cinema history. The filmmakers responsible for these works understood themselves as combatants against the struggles of life in Palestine. Armed with cameras, they depict life in refugee camps, resistance, and the reality of occupation at a time when Palestinian narratives were almost absent from global media.

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Wendy Cook, Head of Cinema at HPPH, told the Leeds Tab: “We’re privileged to work with specialists like Leeds Palestinian Film Festival who help bring these vital, underseen stories to light. These aren’t just historical artefacts – they’re living documents that speak directly to today”

Leeds Palestine Film Festival, 2024

Itinerary

Taking place from 10am to 5:15pm, the day school is supported by the Leeds Palestinian Film Festival, and funded by Film Hub North, enabling reduced ticket prices for further accessibility.

The event concludes with an evening screening of Little Palestine, Diary of a Siege (2021) at 6pm, by Abdallah Al-Khatib. Little Palestine is a documentary about life in the Yarmouk refugee camp during the Syrian civil war. The film will contextualise the value of militant cinema traditions in the present.

Tickets to the event are available to book here

Hyde Park Picture House will also be hosting a number of screenings throughout the Leeds Palestinian Film Festival. This year the festival takes place from Wednesday 12th November, to Saturday 12th December, and will be hosted in venues and cinemas across Leeds.