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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July 5, 1950 – The famous Sicilian bandit Salvatore Giuliano’ s bullet-riddled corpse is found facedown in a courtyard in Castelvetrano, a handgun and rifle by his side. Local and international press descend upon the scene. Shot in a neo-realist documentary, non-linear style, the film ‘Salvatore Giuliano’ (1962; Francesco Rosi) presents a legal brief against the political establishment and underworld figures who manipulate Giuliano and then eliminate him when he is no longer of any use. It moves back and forth between the late 1940s, when separatist politicians recruited Giuliano and others to do their fighting, and the days leading up to and following Giuliano's death. Rosi filmed in the exact locations and enlisted a cast of native Sicilians who were impacted by the real Giuliano.