Changing the narrative, with Naser Shakhtour

Senses of Cinema was founded on stolen land, on Wurundjeri country in the Kulin nations. This is on the south east coast of what’s now known as Australia. In this context, there’s a counter-colonial angle in a lot of what we do. We stand beside and behind Indigenous people, but never in front. As we edged towards the 113th edition of Senses of Cinema, I knew we had a dossier on cinematic solidarities with Palestine in the pipeline. As a matter of respect, I wanted to acknowledge and amplify those who started and continue the conversation on Palestinian cinema in this country. 

Naser Shakhtour is the founder of Cultural Media. This is a social impact initiative promoting Palestinian art and culture. The Palestinian Film Festival Australia emerged from that in 2007, with Shakhtour at the helm for the last 13 years. The initiative was born from a desire to change the language used to talk about Palestine. Senses of Cinema launched Issue 113 with a screening of R21 aka Restoring Solidarity (Mohanad Yaqubi, 2022), which the Palestinian Film Festival has screened previously. In the film, the narrator explains that, “These films provide us with a language for struggle, an image of a political practice, a face of solidarity.”

I know you started Cultural Media a long time ago, so tell me about that path. What drew you towards it? What was the mission when you started Cultural Media? When did that evolve into the Palestinian Film Festival becoming a cornerstone of the initiative? And, why film?

I came to Australia in the mid-80s and was struck by how Palestine was represented here- if it was represented at all. I used to scan the Sydney Morning Herald every day, checking for reference to Palestine. And whenever it appeared, it was almost always in a negative context – connected to violence, terrorism, instability. There was this unrelenting framing that painted us as a problem. 

At the time, I was a university student. I was meeting academics and activists who would argue politics, but no one was discussing what (to me) seemed like the root of the issue: language and the way it was being either blatantly or mindlessly reproduced to frame Palestinians (and Arabs more broadly) as other. That’s where Cultural Media started – out of a need to counter that framing, and create space to foster better understanding of Palestine and the Middle East, beyond the lens of the political. 

Shortly after I started the project, I came across the work of Jack Shaheen, particularly his book Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. It exposed the vilification of Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood – as villains, terrorists, or backward. When the documentary came out in 2006, I tried to screen it in Australia, but no festival was interested. 

After coming up against so many brick walls, I began to wonder how difficult would it be to run my own festival. I ended up securing six films and documentaries. We ran the first edition with almost no marketing, just word of mouth. But it worked, people came. The response was overwhelming: people cried together, laughed together, and most importantly connected. I noticed the immediate positive impact on the community, and its potential to provide multi-layered perspectives within a narrative so often co-opted and essentialised. 

What really moved me was how the screenings brought people together. Palestinians living in Australia—some born here, some newly arrived—saw themselves reflected on the big screen for the first time. That alone is powerful. One friend, an Australian-born Palestinian, said, “I always thought there was some kind of censorship on us. But this festival—this changed that. It gave us space.”

And it wasn’t just about the Palestinian community. Non-Arab Australians came too. People of all backgrounds, all political views. They stayed after the films, mingling, asking questions, sharing their reactions. Palestine wasn’t treated like a “conflict” or a headline. It became something human, lived, deeply real. That was the goal: to move the conversation from confrontation to connection.

I always wanted to have the focus be on storytelling; centring the humanity, heterogeneity, sorrows, and joys of Palestine. Of life in diaspora, in occupation. I have over the years had some backlash on why the festival avoids politics. Though politics are unavoidable when the word Palestine and the identity of Palestinians has been made inherently political. Just putting our name out there was a political act, but I have always veered away from reducing the festival to a propaganda machine. Palestine in full colour.

There was no way I was stopping after that first three day program and that’s how the Palestinian Film Festival Australia was born. 

Three generations of a family attending the festival.

How do you strike that balance, between acknowledging the very real suffering that takes place, while also uplifting the community and saying, “No, there’s more to Palestine than Israeli aggression or Western imperialism.”?

The festival was built on two core principles: First, to give Palestinian stories a platform in Australia. And secondly, to refuse to be defined by the trauma inflicted upon us. To say we are more than the occupied. We are artists, storytellers, families, communities. 

There isn’t really a balancing act here—it’s about choosing authenticity over sensationalism. It’s about providing a space where Palestinians can simply be seen as they are. Not as victims or heroes, but as human beings with stories worth telling, told by and about themselves. This fundamental assertion of humanity challenges the prevailing Australian and broader Western stereotypes of what it means to be Palestinian.

Identity is dynamic, it evolves with time and goes in different directions. I feel like a lot of patriotism in the nationalist context is people wanting to preserve an idea of the past and bring that into the future, but I think that what patriotism should be is loving your country enough to fight for it to be better. That means challenging your past, challenging your present, challenging your future and critically engaging with that to make it better because you love it.

To quote the Institute of Palestine Studies’ review of the film Lyd (Sarah Ema Friedland, Rami Younis, 2023), “Palestinian cinema often reflects this dynamic understanding of patriotism. While deeply connected to the historical narrative of displacement and resistance, it rarely presents a static, romanticised past. Instead, these films frequently grapple with the complexities of Palestinian identity in the face of ongoing occupation and fragmentation.”

Filmmakers are challenging traditional representations, exploring daily life under occupation, and questioning internal socio-political structures. Their love for Palestine manifests not in blind adherence to one narrative, but through critical engagement with Palestine’s complex realities.

Palestinian cinema portrays evolving identities across generations and geographies, highlighting resilience and creativity while confronting difficult truths and imagining new possibilities. This approach embodies a patriotism rooted in the desire for a better Palestine—one that requires honest self-reflection and an unwavering commitment to justice and liberation.

We’re screening R21 aka Restoring Solidarity (Mohanad Yaqubi, 2022) to launch Issue 113 and the archive is a central tenet of that film. For the 13th edition of the Palestinian Film Festival, you’re screening a beautiful film called A Fidai Film (Kamal Aljafari, 2024) which is about when the IDF raided a Palestinian archive in Beirut and the images and sounds and documents and artefacts are kept by Israeli institutions to this day. Archives are obviously very powerful and threatening to some people, that’s why these things were stolen. I was just wondering why you think we see the archive a lot in Palestinian cinema and how you describe its importance?

Archives are dangerous to those who seek to appropriate history. The erasure of Palestinian material culture is a more obscured front to Israel’s dispossession of Palestinian peoples, continuing with the recent destruction of archives, libraries, and museums in Gaza. These acts are deliberate violations of Palestinian sovereignty, making it harder for future generations to reclaim their histories.

The Palestine Research Centre, Beirut 1982

I remember Israel’s looting of the Palestine Research Centre in Beirut clearly. It was shocking. Israeli’s released booklets and documents later- some in prisoner exchanges. Literature being exchanged like it was contraband. That tells you something. 

People are slow to recognise the institutionalised dynamics of power in who has access to archives, who is represented, what is preserved. At that time, there were no digital backups, no cloud – once those photographs, documents, or videos were taken, they were gone. That’s why restoring and reclaiming archival material is essential. Our stories have been deliberately stolen, suppressed, and silenced. 

Wael Zuaiter lies in a pool of blood, still holding A Thousand and One Nights.
Image from Emily Jacir’s exhibition, Material for a Film.

They also assassinated cultural figures: Wael Zuaiter, Ghassan Kanafani. These weren’t militants- they were artists, translators, writers.¹ When Zuaiter was shot, the bullet first went through the manuscript he was holding of his translation of A Thousand and One Nights.² That image haunts me. 

I mention this as it’s important to note that by silencing artists, and writers, you are erasing the possibility of production of a counternarrative, a counter-archive. This has always been one of the priorities of Israel’s occupation. One of their first acts, in 1967, was to pass legislative changes that transferred protection of archaeological heritage to Israeli authoritative bodies. Israel’s territorial conquest goes hand in hand with it’s conquest over memory and history.  

In Australia, the Israeli narrative has long been the dominant narrative. If you speak to an older Australian, they will tell you that Palestine was a land without people, for people without a land. 

Like Terra nullius. 

Correct.

When I first arrived here and people would ask me by background, I often came up against an insistence that Palestine does not exist. 

That’s why restoring and reclaiming archival films is essential, because our country has been fractured. Our history was distorted. Our identity was denied; we had to reclaim it. Screening archival films is not just an act of artistic nostalgia, but a process of healing, remembering, and reproducing Palestine.

That gives me a lot of clarity and confidence in something that’s been playing on my mind in organising this screening. I knew in my soul that screening these films is important, that there’s an audience that needs to see and hear what Palestinian people have to say. But, it also feels very indulgent to be going to the movies when we could be fundraising for medical care or refugee support. There are so many basic needs of survival that do need to be prioritised. When you’re promoting cultural events like this, it can feel like, am I doing the right thing? Should I put my effort towards other areas that are also worthy of our support? But, I feel like that’s also a part of what an oppressor would want you to do, to put you in survival mode so all your efforts are focused on survival forever and then your community can’t grow because they’ve stifled the growth that’s possible through film and culture and everything. If Israel is so keen on stealing Palestinian cinema, they clearly recognise its power. That’s a good justification in and of itself to show these works, as an act of resistance against ethnic cleansing. 

While emergency fundraising and humanitarian aid are critically important in this moment, they address symptoms rather than causes. Strategic change requires addressing the root issue: the occupation itself, and the disproportionate assessment of value that allows it to continue. 

The Palestinian Film Festival is a component of the broader Palestinian narrative that aspires toward freedom and liberation. It creates space for Palestinian stories to be told on their own terms.

As director of the Palestinian Film Festival in Australia, I feel a responsibility toward Palestinian filmmakers who create films despite limited resources and significant obstacles. You can argue that their creative process ends with the film’s production. However, distribution and audience engagement are equally essential for a film’s impact. By providing a dedicated platform for these works, we ensure that Palestinian cinema can reach its cultural and artistic potential. Without such platforms, even the most powerful films might never reach the audiences they deserve.

We need to ensure someone sees it, so the film is safe. 

Exactly, and this infrastructure is still very Eurocentric. 

Yes. 

Imagine negotiating with the French, German, and English agencies to get the rights to screen a Palestinian film. How do you think I feel about it? 

Like, “Hey, can I have the right to screen my own national cinema please?” 

I used to find that ironic. It used to bother me a lot, but it doesn’t bother me that much now. In the future, we hope to grow as an institution. We’ll become a distribution company of Palestinian literature and arts, not only for Palestine, but for the Global South. Palestine is not unique in their struggle for freedom. 

When confronted with an overwhelming international media and political apparatus dedicated to erasing your existence, dehumanising your people, and denying your right to narrative agency, collective expression becomes essential. Film provides that powerful voice. By screening Palestinian cinema, we create a counternarrative that affirms our humanity, validates our experiences, and documents our ongoing presence. The language of film transcends barriers, reaching audiences that might otherwise remain inaccessible to Palestinian perspectives. Through these visual stories—intimate, authentic, and undeniable—we assert not just our existence but our full humanity in ways that political speeches and news reports cannot. This cultural resistance becomes as vital as any other form of standing up and speaking out, preserving Palestinian identity while simultaneously making it impossible for the world to look away.

Thank you for your work, which started many years ago in bringing Palestinian stories to Australia.

Festival promotion: King street, Newtown

The Palestinian Film Festival is screening nationally in Australia from May 1 – 11th 2025. In the interest of honouring and upholding a film history that fosters Palestinian cultural expression, please see below for a Cultural Media chronology:

2007 – Inaugural Palestinian Film Festival Australia 

2008 – Mahmoud Darwish Memorial Event, NSW Writers’ Centre

2008 – In Spitting Distance, Sydney Opera House

2009 – 2nd Palestinian Film Festival Australia 

2010 – 3rd Palestinian Film Festival Australia 

2012 – Beyond the Last Sky: Contemporary Palestinian Art and Video, Australian Centre for Photography

2012 – 4th Palestinian Film Festival Australia 

2014 – 5th Palestinian Film Festival Australia 

2015 – 6th Palestinian Film Festival Australia featuring international guest, Leila Sansour 

2016 – The Idol (Hany Abu-Assad, 2015) special screening

2016 – 7th Palestinian Film Festival Australia featuring international guest, Mai Masri

2017 – Wedding in Galilee (Michel Khleifi, 1988) special screening, live Q&A with director Michel Khleifi 

2017 – Omar (Hany Abu-Assad, 2013) special screening, live Q&A with actor Adam Bakri

2017 – 8th Palestinian Film Festival Australia featuring international guest, Suad Amiry

2018 – 9th Palestinian Film Festival Australia featuring international guest, Dr Ahlam Al Muhtaseb

2019 – 10th Palestinian Film Festival Australia including Film Night for Black-Palestinian Solidarity Conference³ featuring international guest, Shatha Safi

2019 – Special collaboration with Sydney Architecture Festival featuring international guest, Shatha Safi

2020 – 2021: COVID
a – Book Launch: In Conversation with Professor Rashid Khalidi
b- It Must Be Heaven (Elia Suleiman, 2019) national theatrical release in Australia
c- GAZA (Garry Keane and Andrew McConnel, 2019) New Zealand theatrical release 

2022 –  11th Palestinian Film Festival Australia

2023 – Launch of the Qumra Arab Festival, a celebration of traditional and contemporary Arab art and culture. 

2024 – 12th Palestinian Film Festival Australia

2025 – 13th Palestinian Film Festival 

Endnotes