IMAGINING LIBERATION

Dalia Al Kury

Imagining Liberation is an artistic research project with the aim of investigating methods in speculative nonfiction. This project begins with a question: What kind of cinematic images can arise from imagining a liberated Palestine? Dalia AlKury’s interest in staging simulated pasts in her earlier documentaries and then staging speculations of futures during her PhD research stems from a deep frustration with the lack of art imagining a world that she hopes is possible. Both practices—staging in documentary and speculative fiction—are rooted in posing the question “What if?,” to offer another possible world or narrative. Her work combines these approaches in the realization of her own method in speculative multitemporal nonfiction. Dalia AlKury approaches documentary filmmaking not as a way of documenting reality, but as a way of constructing an alternative one. Her final artistic results are informed by a long legacy of politically poetic Palestinian aesthetics and by grievances over the historical and present day witnessing of the violent ethnic cleansing of her people. By committing to framing her vignettes in a fictional liberated Palestine, an emancipatory art making process starts to take shape. The process excavates an often-oppressed critical rage and pushes it up to the surface through different narrative tools. Imagining Liberation traces the filmmaker's confrontational journey while experimenting with staging, subverting, futuring, abstracting, and decolonizing to reach a type of catharsis in the face of a continuously fragmented diasporic existence. By staging her own return to a liberated Palestine in different modes from writing to filming, Dalia AlKury runs into ethical dilemmas questioning her self-censorship, representation of “others” and the elusive role of cinematic catharsis. This book encompasses her critical reflection on the short films , narrative experiments and video diaries created throughout her research. The three main audio-visual works that will be shared and analyzed are Congratulations on Your Return, Levitations, and What if a Tree, What if a Crow?

Video and Audio Diaries

A home video of a potential homeland video

Most Palestinians that are allowed by Israel to visit their parents´s homes in Palestine go through a hunt. In 2012, I documented my own, and what I ended up with, is a deeper understanding of why my grandfather would get so angry when I asked him why he refuses to "visit" Safad. (No subtitles)

Virtual production tech-check

This video is merely an excerpt of how we explored our 3D futuristic assets and props we designed for the virtual set of the film Congratulations on Your Return. This 3D scanned environment is actually of Deir Al-Sultan, a monastery located on the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and was the backdrop of the hummus bar we placed in this roof.

Can we heal without returning to Palestine?

This video offers a behind the scenes footage of the main character, Thuria, the actual sister of the director Dalia, who stars in film Levitations. Thuria´s philosophy and practice in healing techniques have largely informed the mood and aesthetic quality of the film. In this sisterly interview, Dalia starts to get more insight into why the Palestinian diaspora find the concept of healing a difficult one to swallow

Physical Moodboard

This illustrates an early physical moodboard exploring a revenge fantasy scene used in the film What if a Tree, What if a Crow?

Stop the Car and Shoot

Stop the Car and Shoot is a method I use to approach a fictional storyline using documentary low-budget techniques to experiment and create more authentic documentary material. This little home video was filmed by my husband as we drove by a Bedouin tent on a road trip in Jordan. I had been jokingly telling our kids that I will send them to the desert if they don´t practice their Arabic so the frame and storyline was ripe. The whole video was shot in 30 min and edited on the phone. I used this method in a few scenes in the film Levitations.

Note: No children were hurt on set

Conversation with director Elia Suleiman

In this casual phone interview, director Elia Suleiman demystefies his techniques regarding the representation of "others" in his films.

Audio recording of a conversation with Director Elia Sulieman- June, 2023

Voice notes with director Annemarie Jacir

I ask Annemarie to recount what happens on her film sets when she fictionalizes Israeli military check points.

Audio recording of conversation with Director Anne-Marie Jacie

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Dalia Al Kury - IMAGINING LIBERATION - 2024