Darat al Funun is pleased to present a film series curated by Emily Jacir to run concurrently with her exhibition at Darat al Funun. Over the course of three months Jacir will be presenting a series of seven pivotal films which have influenced her and her practice, or which her work is in dialogue with. Her work investigates personal and collective movement through public space and its implications on the physical and social experience of trans-Mediterranean space and time, in particular between Italy and Palestine.

Besides her own films and videos, Jacir has a long history with cinema from curating some of the first Arab and Palestinian Film programs for NYC with Alwan for the Arts between 1999 – 2002, to conceiving of and co-curating the first Palestine International Video Festival in Ramallah in 2002. She also curated a selection of shorts, “Palestinian Revolution Cinema (1968 -1982)” which went on tour in 2007. Select film juries that Jacir has served on include Visions du Reel Festival international du cinéma (2014), Berlinale Shorts International Jury (2012), and the Cinema XXI Jury Rome Film Festival (2012).

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The film ‘Dead Man’ (1995; Jim Jarmusch), a "Psychedelic Western”, includes twisted and surreal elements, making it the ultimate post-modern Western. Shot entirely in black-and-white, the film follows William Blake, who ventures westward by train to the dystopian town of Machine in search of work. Forced to go on the run after murdering a man, he befriends Nobody, a Native American familiar with the works of the poet William Blake. The soundtrack was composed by Neil Young, and includes portions he improvised while watching the film footage. Language: English, with Arabic subtitles.