Palestine 36
1936. As villages across Mandate Palestine rise against British rule, Yusuf drifts between his rural home and the restless energy of Jerusalem, longing for a future beyond the growing unrest. But history is relentless. With rising numbers of Jewish immigrants escaping an increasingly fascist Europe, and Palestinian calls for independence, all sides spiral towards inevitable colllision in a decisive moment for the British Empire and the future of the entire region.
In this multi-strand drama, Yusuf and his compatriots find themselves caught up amid their nation's fight for freedom as the war between a people and an empire is pushed to a breaking point.
Festivals & awards
TIFF – Toronto International Film Festival 2025: Gala Screening
SĂŁo Paulo International Film Festival: Audience Award
Tokyo International Film Festival: Best Film
European Film Awards 2026: Feature Film Selection
Credits
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Press voices
«Palestine 36 illustre avec puissance comment la mémoire et la résistance se construisent dans l’interaction intime entre le corps, le territoire et la narration.» Africiné
«A humanist film at its heart, remaining deeply rooted in the lives of its characters, their relationships with their community, their love for their people, and their enduring connection to their ancestral land.» RogerEbert
«Un brûlant croisement de l’Histoire dont les flammes n’ont pas cessé malheureusement de croître.» Cineuropa
«An affecting denouement, which gestures towards seemingly unbreakable chains of intergenerational violence, shakes off any remaining comforting period drama gloss to speak directly, arrestingly, to today.» Sight and Sound
«Palestine 36 offers a great breadth of knowledge and history […] The entire cast is fantastic.» The Film Stage
«Veteran Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir […] goes back even further and deeper into the archive, the social tapestries, and colonizer tactics, to ask how Palestine as we know it today might have come to originate in the anti-British Palestinian Revolt of 1936-1939.» IndieWire
«As Palestine 36 dramatizes so well, the fight for justice is no more complicated than the schism between heartlessness and compassion, no less urgent than the interfused fires of anguish and hope.» The Hollywood Reporter
«Annemarie Jacir weaves a captivating and very instructive fresco […]: a committed choral film, weaved with much narrative agility, returning to a sadly decisive historical chapter for the Palestinian people. Naturally passionate, committed, resistant and rather feminist, the film mixes together the right doses of melodrama and historical reenactment.» Cineuropa
«A passionate, timely and thoughtful story about the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that audiences will view through a contemporary lens.» Screen Daily
«It’s grand in scale, ambitious in storytelling and balanced in the way it pays equal attention to historical scope and detailed characterization.» Variety