The Turtle’s Rage
When I was 12 years old, my father left us to return to Palestine. His dream to build a house and pursue the fight for freedom in Palestine failed. He was expelled by the Israelis. Suddenly, he was back in Berlin, ringing at our front door. My mother looked at him, did not say a word and let him in.
A tragicomedy, in layered and intelligent dialogue, of a daughter´s attempt to understand her father and his torn biography. A film born of an urgent emotional necessity; it draws the viewer right into the heart of the trauma of displacement. In the confrontation between the filmmaker and her troubled father, between the dream of a homeland and the reality of a journey, emerges a story of tenderness and impossibility.
Geopolitical context
This film was released in 2012. At that time, UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) had nearly five million registered refugees and displaced persons from Palestine. Approximately one million more, including those forcibly displaced from their native land in 1948 during the first war of the newly-created state of Israel, were not registered as refugees. In December 1948, the UN passed a resolution affirming the Palestinians' right to return home. Later UN resolutions referred back to the original resolution. However, the number of displaced persons and refugees has only increased, not only due to ongoing hostilities, but also due to the confiscation of Palestinian indigenous land and property, and restrictions on their civil rights. A large number of Palestinian families have been forced to leave their homes several times in recent decades, under pressure from Israeli political or military actions. The legal status of Palestinians varies between countries. Over the course of the years, most Palestinians in Jordan have been able to obtain citizenship, but in Lebanon people from Palestine still suffer discrimination and are denied
Lebanese citizenship, leaving them officially «stateless». Over three million Palestinians live in Jordan, while approximately 80,000 live in Germany (the biggest Palestinian community within Europe).
Her documentary Turtle’s Rage (Schildkrötenwut, 2012) received numerous awards including Newcomer Awards at Visions du Réel (Switzerland, 2012) and Duisburg Filmweek (Germany, 2012), Al Jazeera Golden Award at Al Jazeera Documentary Festival (Qatar, 2013) and Best Director award at Europe-Orient Documentary Festival Assilah (Morocco 2014).
Selected filmography: Still I Rise (in development), Neighbours (co-directed with Christiane Schmidt, 2018), Zooland (2016), The Turtle’s Rage (2012)
