Cinematic activism: film festivals and the exhibition of Palestinian cultural politics in the United States

Cinematic Activism examines how marginalized or underrepresented identity-based and cause-based groups leverage film culture in order to foment social, cultural, or political change. I explore this in detail by analyzing how Palestine-themed film festival organizing in the United States has emerged as a method for the open expression of Palestinian cultural politics within a broader cultural context that is marked by hegemonic institutional and political support for the state of Israel, or what I call “compulsory Zionism.” I draw on queer and feminist theory in order to illustrate how the social power relations within the United States construct Palestinian cultural identity and politics as the politically and culturally queer Other within the context of compulsory Zionism. ❧ This project is based on oral history interviews with participants of the Boston Palestine Film Festival, film festival participant observation, visual analysis of films and festival materials, and qualitative analysis of print news discourses on Palestinian cinema. I trace the emergence of Palestinian cinematic activism to the 1980s and 1990s, wherein controversies over the exhibition of Palestinian cinema in cities such as Boston and San Francisco made the institutional and cultural censorship of Palestinian cultural politics highly visible while simultaneously identifying film exhibition as a powerful tool by which to dismantle institutionalized compulsory Zionism. At the same time, these controversies were frequently cast in relation to controversies over the expression of LGBT/Q cultural politics through art and cinema. This project therefore also historicizes the relationships between Palestinian cultural politics and LGBT/Q cultural politics, which continue to interact today within the realm of film festivals, such as Outside the Frame: Queers for Palestine Film Festival, Frameline: The San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival, and the Out in Israel Film Festival. Cinematic Activism is ultimately a study of culture and power that interrogates cinema’s role in the production of transnational solidarities and political activism.