R21 AKA Restoring Solidarity الفيلم رقم ٢١
Mohanad Yaqubi | 2022 | total Running time: 71m The growing struggle for Palestinian self-determination between 1960 and 1980 was supported by radical left-wing movements worldwide, also in Japan. This is illustrated by a collection of 16mm films by militant filmmakers from various countries, which were dubbed and screened in Japan. Their Japanese audiences felt oppressed by the US after World War II, and not only sympathised but also identified with the Palestinians.
About the filmmakerMohanad Yaqubi is a filmmaker, producer, and one of the founders of the Ramallah-based production outfit Idioms Film, as well as of the research and curatorial collective Subversive Films which focuses on militant film practices.
He is a resident researcher at KASK Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Gent, Belgium. He researches archival structures within transnational solidarity movements, while considering politics, aesthetics and cinema, at the same time, re-thinking imperfect archives as a mechanism to bridge living memories.
His work involves interactions inventories, film scanners, reels, magnetic tapes, and a Canon A1 with 50mm lense. Yaqubi’s first feature film Off Frame AKA Revolution Until Victory (2016) made its premiere at TIFF, Berlinale, Cinéma du réel, Dubai IFF, and Yamagata among fifty other premiers and screenings around the world, his second Feature R 21 AKA Restoring Solidarity has its premiere at IDFA, Marrakech, Jerusalem IFF among others.
Yaqubi’s filmography as a producer includes the feature films Infiltrators (Khaled Jarrar, 2013), Suspended Time (Several directors, 2013), Ambulance (Mohammed Jabaly, 2016) Ouroboros (dir. Basma Sharif, 2017), Ibrahim: A Fate to Define (Lina Alabed, 2019), As I want (Samaher Al-Qadi, 2021), Chopped (Karam Ali and Casey A. Jackson, 2023).
Genre: Documentary, Experimental, Historical, Archives
Year of Release: 2022
Original Language(s): Japanese, Arabic, English