Gaza on Our Mind: Special Film Screening 'Ma'loul Celebrates its Destruction'

About the Film

Ma'loul Celebrates Its Destruction is a 1984 documentary short film by Palestinian director Michel Khleifi that follows the inhabitants of the ruined Palestinian village of Ma'alul on Israel's Day of Independence. 

Ma'alul was located west of Nazareth and was inhabited by Palestinian Christians who were forced to leave in 1948 during the Israeli War of Independence. After the war, the villagers were only allowed to visit their village once a year on Israel's Day of Independence, where they would organize a picnic on the site of their demolished village. All that remains of the village are the ruins of two churches and a mosque, which have since disappeared under a forest planted in memory of the victims of Nazism.

The film explores the villagers' memories of the destruction of their village and their determination to hold onto their ancestral land. It includes:

• Images of destructionThe film uses images of bombardments, destroyed buildings, and disfigured people to illustrate the destruction of Palestinian villages since the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948.
• Stories from the villagersFormer inhabitants tell their stories while preparing for a picnic on the site of their destroyed village. Village elders recall the destruction of their property and way of life, while younger people try to absorb their heritage on the day.
• Other elementsThe film also includes a teacher explaining the founding of Israel to his Arab students, and a family commenting on a fresco of their village that they painted based on their memories.

About Michel Khleifi

Born in Nazareth in 1950 to a Palestinian working-class family, Michel Khleifi is considered the founder of contemporary Palestinian cinema and one of its most original voices. After immigrating to Belgium in 1970, he studied theatre and television at INSAS, Brussels and worked for RTBF (Belgian television) before making his first feature‐length documentary, Fertile Memories (1980), which combined a lyrical aesthetic with a critical political engagement, as did Maloul Celebrates its Destruction (1985).

In 1987, he directed Wedding in Galilee, the first feature film entirely shot in Palestine by a Palestinian director, which premiered at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and won the International Critics Prize among many other awards. The film marked Palestinian cinema’s entry into the international scene. A further three features followed: Canticle of the Stones (1990), L’ordre du jour (1992) and Tale of the Three Jewels (1995), and documentaries Forbidden Marriages in the Holy Land (1996) and Route 181 – Fragments of a Journey in Palestine and Israel (2002, co‐directed with Eyal Sivan). Zindeeq (2009) won the Golden Muhr at the 2009 Dubai International Film Festival. Khleifi lives in Brussels, where he has taught filmmaking at INSAS for over thirty years, in addition to other teaching posts at Columbia University, St Joseph University in Beirut and AM Qattan Foundation in Palestine and Jordan.