Annemarie Jacir‘s drama “Palestine 36,” which reconstructs the largely unknown Palestinian revolt against British colonial rule in 1936, is the very definition of a passion project for the director who has always explored Palestinian identity her films. But never on such a large canvas.
Her particularly timely historical epic follows a young man named Yusuf who gets caught up in political upheaval as tensions rise in Jerusalem and in his village amid British crackdowns prompted by the arrival of Jewish immigrants escaping antisemitism in Europe. The multi-strand drama features a high-profile cast comprising Jeremy Irons as a colonial commissioner, Hiam Abbas (“Succession”), Liam Cunningham and Saleh Bakri (“The Teacher”).
When the Israel-Hamas War broke out on Oct. 7, 2023, Jacir was just one week away from starting principal photography on “Palestine 36” in Bethlehem, where she was born. Production was put on hold and subsequently started in Jordan before returning for additional shooting in Palestine.
The film – which is Palestine’s official entry for the Oscars’ international feature film race – is having its Middle East premiere at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah after launching from Toronto and playing at other top events including the Marrakech Film Festival where it is the closer.
“Palestine 36” will be released by Watermelon Pictures in the U.S. in early 2026 promoted with a series of conversations held by Mark Ruffalo, Diego Luna, Susan Sarandon, Riz Ahmed, Ava DuVernay, Mira Nair, Julie Delpy and Ramy Youssef.
Jacir – whose previous works comprise “When I Saw You,” “Salt of This Sea” and “Wajib” – speaks to Variety about her research for this film and her first impressions of playing it for a U.S. audience.
I know the film is based on research and rooted in historical fact. But I’m wondering about the central character of Khuloud, the feisty female journalist. Is she based on a real person?
Khaloud is a female, well-educated, upper-class journalist during this period, completely inspired by a number of real women who were working in Palestine, but also in Lebanon and Egypt. They were using male names for two reasons. One, because it was kind of looked down upon [for a woman] to be a journalist, and they wanted to be taken seriously. And the second reason is they were writing under a colonial government that was censoring the news and it was dangerous to be a journalist. Which, incidentally, is still the case today.
Khuloud is married to Amir, the wealthy newspaper editor who belongs to the Muslim Association that we learn is in collusion with a Jewish agency called the Zionist Commission. How did that surface?
When I started doing the research I came across this mention of a Zionist Commission for Arab Affairs and that they were placing articles in newspapers in Arabic to influence people. And I was like, wow! That’s so modern. That’s what people do today. I started digging at it more. The Palestinian national parties had what were called the Muslim Christian associations that were working towards independence. Then I found out that the Zionists founded a Muslim Association to break that solidarity. Divide and conquer has really been the way for hundreds of years that has worked all over the world.
The film shows factionalism within the Palestinians. Do you also see that as something that is relevant today?
Absolutely. We still see that kind of thing going on. What we have today [the Israeli -Palestinian conflict] is not a religious conflict. People want to turn into a religious conflict by saying: “Oh, Jews and Muslims have been fighting for thousands of years. But it’s not a religious conflict. And people play upon that. I find it really interesting because even now the Israelis are trying very hard to continue that history of divide and conquer. They started with the Druze community. The Druze community is part of us, they are part of our community. But they’ve been putting Druze in the army. Putting them on the borders. Letting them do the grunt work. It’s all about trying to separate a people.
In terms of your historical sources, I’ve read that one of them is the book “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine” by Columbia University professor Rashid Khalid. Have you been in contact with him. Has he seen the film?
There were books by many other people as well, including one by Tom Segev [a columnist for Israeli newspaper “Ha’aretz”], another by [Israeli historian] Ilan Pappe. And others. Khalid has not seen the film yet. I am waiting for him to see it. But other historians that have seen it whose works are very influential to me. Charles Anderson, a historian who writes a lot about the period, has seen the film and wrote a beautiful response to it. The same goes for [Oxford University historian] Avi Shlaim, who has seen the film. That’s one of the things that makes me nervous, you know. There’s the audience, and then there’s the academics and the historians. What are they gonna say? It’s like: I don’t care about the reviews, I care about these guys.
A lot has been written about the fact that you were in prep when Oct. 7 events forced you to relocate from Palestine to Jordan. Simply put: what was it like to be shooting this film about the roots of the conflict just as it escalated to an unprecedented level?
There was something really insane about it, and emotionally very difficult. Because, you know, we were making this film about this violent period, this critical period. But the violence around us was so much worse than what we could have ever imagined. We always think we’ve lived through a dark moment of history, and then we find ourselves living an even darker one.
Though the film is from the Palestinian perspective you interweave archive footage that shows real footage of Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Europe. Talk to me about that choice.
That was an important choice for me because we don’t have Jewish characters in the film, but I think its crucial to see the background of what was going on. I wanted to focus on the British [colonialists] and their complicity in the conflict. But also on the fact that for me Palestine is one of the most ethnically and religiously mixed places on earth. Armenians fled the Ottoman genocide and came to Palestine, and they are part of our community. Circassians came to Palestine. Bosnians came to Palestine. There’s a village in Palestine that founded by Bosnians. Jewish people fled Europe. They fled fascism and Nazism and came for safety. They were later used for a political project. But I wanted to show the people on those boats coming in because we were a country – not to say that we were perfect, or that we were angels – but we were a country that a lot of people have been coming in and out of for thousands and thousands of years. From the East, from the West. Some as conquerors, some as Crusaders. Some as religious pilgrims. There’s a Nigerian community that came as religious pilgrims. It’s who we are. And I wanted to nod to that fact that the fascism that was happening in Europe was not us. They came for safety.
The film just played for a week as a sneak peak in U.S. theaters prior to its more substantial rollout early next year. What are your thoughts about bringing it to American audiences in the current climate?
I never thought that there would be a Palestinian distribution company in the U.S. Then when Watermelon Pictures approached us I thought: the world is really changing! The U.S. is the one place where I’ve always struggled to get distribution. So it’s interesting. I’ve been to the U.S. now a couple times for these Oscar screenings or festival screenings. It’s really interesting because first of all, I’m looking out at the audience, and there’s a bunch of 18-year-olds. They are like old-school progressives, and they are all 18 year-olds. And second of all, I’m always waiting for some aggressive thing to happen, because that’s how it used to be. I had somebody spit at me once in a screening. You known Palestinian voices can trigger craziness in some people. And I’m having none of that happening. I haven’t lived in the U.S. in, like, 25 years. But I feel something is happening. The climate is really bad. But also something has happened for the better. I think people are open.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
variety.com
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