Synopsis
On May 6th, 2021, Palestinians in East Jerusalem began protesting over the ongoing Israeli ethnic cleansing policies in the city and in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. After a few days, demonstrations spread throughout Palestine in a united uprising for two weeks. It included confrontations with the Israeli police, a military confrontation in Gaza, and organized attacks by Israeli settlers on Arab neighbourhoods in historic Palestinian cities in Israel. Last May in Palestine is a short documentary in which the director of the film, journalist Rabeea Eid tells his story of returning to Palestine from the United Kingdom following the assassination of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022. He opens his archives and relives the events of May 2021, which he documented in Haifa and other places. In this trip, Rabeea talks about his personal experience and the challenges that these dangerous events posed to him between his journalistic and documentary work, with the fears that accompany this kind of work and his family's deep worries about him. The scenes of the return to Palestine are accompanied by those of the May events, where places and memories in Haifa are once more evoked.
Palestine/UK
2022
21 min’ 36 seconds
Arabic and English with subtitles
Rabeea Eid is a journalist from Palestine living in the UK. Rabeea holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Haifa, a master’s degree in media and cultural studies from the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, and a second master’s in journalism and documentary practice from University of Sussex. Rabeea’s works focus on activism, culture, and political and social change movements.