Ayelet Zohar: PFLP, Out of Place, Ghada, Nakba, and Tokyo Reels: The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict in Japanese Documentary Films

February 3rd, 2025 — ONLINE @ 19:00 JST

PFLP, Out of Place, Ghada, Nakba, and Tokyo Reels: The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict in Japanese Documentary Films
Ayelet Zohar (Tel Aviv University)

Meeting ID: 844 8635 8218
Passcode: Please see banner at the top of this page.

The Israeli Palestinian conflict is not a foreign resident in the Japanese discourse. It is dwelling in numerous films since the 1970s, embarking during the post 1970s ANPO demonstrations and the escape of Shigenobu Fusako (重信房子b. 1945) to Beirut on that year. Since then, numerous films have deleved into the conflict, the tragedy, the drama, the trauma, the resilience and persistence of the Palestinian people, from multiple points of view.

In my presentation, I will review several documentary films, trying to answer the question: what makes this conflict so significant and magnetizing to Japanese artists and the public? I will attempt to draw lines between Japanese self-criticism towards attitudes of Embracing Defeat in the immediate postwar era; Indicating the romantic attraction and admiration of the Japanese Red Army to radical Left intellectuals; pointing at the sense of the underdog (hōgan biiki 判官贔屓), in reference to Yoshitsune.

The presentation will look into Adachi Masao’s classic PFLP (1971) filmed in Beirut; Horikawa Ryūichi’s Nakba (2006), created over a period of 26 years, following two Palestinian villages that had become refuges in 1948; Sato Makoto’s Out of place (2004), that looks into the life of Edward Said, along conversations with Palestinian- Israelis; Furui Mizue’s Ghada: Song of Palestine (2005), a film that engages with life and struggle in Gaza under the occupation of Israeli military in the 1990s; and finally, a collection of short documentary films assembled and presented for the first time in Documenta 15 (Kassel, Germany), under the title Tokyo Reels (2022).