A magical substance flows into me opens with a crackly voice recording. The voice is that of Dr. Robert Lachmann, a Jewish-German ethnomusicologist who immigrated to 1930s Palestine. While attempting to establish an archive and department of Oriental Music at the Hebrew University, Lachmann created a radio program for the Palestine Broadcasting Service called “Oriental Music”, where he would invite members of local communities to perform their vernacular music. Over the course of the film, Manna follows in Lachmann’s footsteps and visits Kurdish, Moroccan and Yemenite Jews, Samaritans, members of urban and rural Palestinian communities, Bedouins and Coptic Christians, as they exist today within historical Palestine.
Arabic and Hebrew with English sub
★The director will be present (Q & A)
Jumana Manna (1987) is a Palestinian artist working primarily with film and sculpture. Her work explores how power is articulated through relationships, often focusing on the body and materiality in relation to narratives of nationalism, and histories of place.