Femininity and the Challenge of Representation: Some Thoughts about Minor Israeli and Palestinian Films
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 2023
Abstract
In a joint interview, shortly after the release of In Between (2016), writer-director Maysaloun Hamoud and lead actress Mouna Hawa proclaimed that the primary aim of the film was to render visible the otherwise invisible lives of young Palestinian women living in Tel-Aviv-Jaffa—an unclassifiable group that forms a minority within a minority within a minority. By what means can a minority relegated to an invisible existence be represented and what is the ethical import of films which grapple with the absence of a feminine space and the impossibility of its representation? These challenges take center stage in several works of contemporary Israeli and Palestinian women filmmakers. While the historical (and present) circumstances and contexts underlying the production of their work differ, the directorial sensibilities which populate the aesthetic fabric of such films point to the emergence of collective assemblages of enunciation that transgress essentialist categorizations.
Publication
Israel Studies
Publisher
Indiana University Press
Volume
28
Issue
1
Pages
233-247
Department
College of Communication and Design
Recommended Citation
Dushi, N. (2023). Femininity and the challenge of representation: Some thoughts about minor Israeli and Palestinian films. Israel Studies, 28(1), 233-247. https://doi.org/10.2979/israelstudies.28.1.14
