[[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

‘LYD’: A MUST-SEE PALESTINIAN DOCUMENTARY  
[[link removed]]


 

Silvi Van-Wall
March 14, 2024
Screen Hub
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ 'Lyd' is the story of a city that once connected Palestine to the
world – and what it could have become. _

Lyd Film Poster, cinematerial.com

 

This is the story of a city that once ‘connected Palestine to the
world’ – what it once was, what it is now, and what it could have
become.

In _Lyd_, a new documentary by American filmmaker Sarah Ema
Friedland [[link removed]] and Palestinian
filmmaker Rami Younis [[link removed]], we
learn that the city of Lyd has a history that is difficult to
summarise. Having gone by many names – Lod currently, but formerly
Lydda, Lidd, and Ludd – as well as many battles and many
occupations, it is an almost perpetually shifting urban landscape
where many scars of the past remain.

To put it too simply, Lyd, a city about 15km south of Tel Aviv, once
belonged to Palestine, but is now called Lod and is a part of Israel.
A historian walking through rubble tells us that Lyd was actually
known as the ‘first capital of Palestine’, way back in 636AD. By
the 1990s, it was referred to as ‘the drug capital of the Middle
East’.

But it’s what happened in between that’s the focus of this film.
In 1948, Israelis captured the city during the Arab-Israeli wars
[[link removed]]. This event has
been referred to in many ways, including Operation Dani and the
Palestinian Exodus from Lydda and Ramle
[[link removed]], but the Arab survivors have a
different name for it: the Nakba
[[link removed].],
which means ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic.

Executively produced by Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, and made across
production houses in the UK, the US, and Palestine, _Lyd _is perhaps
best described as a ‘sci-fi documentary’, because it combines very
real facts with dream-like sequences that envision a new reality for
the city.

Opening with a series of shots showing a quiet, decrepit city of Lyd
with only a few signs of life – children playing in an alley, a man
crossing a carpark in a motorised scooter – the title overlay
quickly changes from Lyd: City of Palestine, to Lyd: City of Israel.
While this happens, a voiceover welcomes us to the city.

This voice is the Voice of Lyd, played by Maisaa Abd El-Hadi, who is
characterised as a warm, gentle female presence who calmly explains
the significance of the Nakba. ‘You won’t believe the way people
have behaved just because they want _me_,’ she says.

The Voice of Lyd explains that this documentary moves between two
worlds: the real world, captured on camera in talking heads, drone
shots, archival footage and photographs, and a fictional world in
which the Nakba never happened: a technicolor, animated version of Lyd
where things are very different – in short, lives are enriched, and
Arab people are the ones who are privileged.

In the course of the film, we will hear from survivors of the Nakba,
their children, and their grandchildren, as well as school teachers
and young activists. We also hear from the current mayor of Lod –
who insists the city is a thriving melting pot of cultures – and
from former Israeli soldiers who fought in the 1948 war.

The first talking head we hear from is an elderly male survivor of the
Nakba, who can still remember every excruciating detail of the terror
he experienced while waiting out the violence with his family. It is a
harrowing watch, but a vital one if the goal is gaining greater
understanding the history of Israel-Palestine conflict.

The Voice of Lyd then introduces the alternate history: what if the
conflict never started, and Lyd remained ‘the city that connected
Palestine to the world’? And not only that, but what if Palestine
were never colonised after WWI, and the people were able to fight off
the incoming British Empire
[[link removed]]?

We see this alternate history play out in bright animated sequences,
with cartoon versions of the subjects chosen for the documentaries’
talking heads, voiced by the very people they represent. These
cartoons are content, and live freely to do as they please in their
version of the city of Lyd. But even these happy cartoons cannot
escape reality: it creeps in through cracks in their skyscrapers, and
in reflections on the bus, demanding their full attention. The real
Lyd – or Lod – cannot be ignored.

Archival Tapes

In the first half of the film, the directors choose to contextualise
the story of Lyd by using archival tapes from 1989, in which Palmach
[[link removed]] soldiers (belonging to the
Zionist military organisation of the same name) tell their side of the
story of the Nakba.

In their own words, these Palmach soldiers describe targeting a mosque
within the city of Lyd and opening fire on the people inside – many
of which they claimed were armed men. The tone they use is one of
recounting heroic deeds, and there is an evident detachment from the
emotion of the events. Sans any kind of commentary from the ‘Voice
of Lyd’, and presented straight, the effect of these tapes is quite
shocking.

When we cut back to the present day, the Voice of Lyd explains that
the city is now commonly referred to by Israelis as Lod
[[link removed]], and that the main town square is
named Palmach Square, after those soldiers.

Among the many surprises of the documentary, I learned that
Palestinians from Lyd have a huge connection to St George
[[link removed]], and see his victory over
the legendary dragon as a metaphor for overcoming colonisation. Some
even believe his mother came from Palestine, and that his body is
buried under the city.

So, in the corresponding animated sequence following the 1989 tapes,
there is a massive bronze statue dedicated to St George has been
erected in Lyd’s town square, which is no longer named after the
Palmach. Tourists and locals gather around it as stories are recounted
by the elderly.

Act two begins in a very real refugee camp in Israel, where a number
of Palestinians now live and work. The survivors of the Nakba here –
such as one grandmother who tells her history while teaching her
grandkids to peel and cut eggplant – have an immense task of
remembering and recounting the horrors they experienced in 1948, while
simultaneously living in a state of limbo; unable to ever return to
the place they call home.

 The Voice of Lyd bemoans the fact that many Palestinians who were
exiled after the Nakba, including that grandmother, view ‘her’
city as an idyllic place that simply doesn’t exist anymore. They
romanticise her, she explains, and refuse to accept the reality that
what they knew of Lyd is now gone.

Meanwhile, in the alternate Lyd, two boys from the refugee camp can
now roam freely and attend a lecture at the ‘Hannah Arendt Hall’
in a big university, and then take the bus home while discussing their
plans for the festival of Eid Lydd, an Arab Christian holiday that is
under no threat of becoming banned.

When we come back to reality, we are shown a modern day classroom in
Lod, and a class of primary-school aged children. Their lesson takes
place in a cramped, dark room with one table and a single teacher
struggling with minimal resources.

They are learning about identity, and while many of the children are
quick to identify themselves as Palestinian, there is not one of them
in the class that can correctly answer where Palestine is on a map.
Their teacher ends the lesson in tears, and wonders aloud if this is
how they ‘vanish from the face of the earth’ in ten years’ time.

In a stunning VFX sequence, we are shown destroyed Palestinian
buildings and structures being ‘reborn’ into modern day triumphs
of architecture; refurbished and reimagined at the same time. In this
version of reality, the teacher we met before can teach in a classroom
where each student has a desk, pens, paper, etc, and she can write her
lesson plans on the big blackboard behind her. It may seem simple to
many of us, but for her it is transformative.

_'LYD'_  SHOWED AT THE PALESTINIAN FILM FESTIVAL IN MELBOURNE AND
PERTH AND HAS BEGUN TO SCREEN IN THE UNITED STATES.

* Film Review
[[link removed]]
* Documentary Fim
[[link removed]]
* 'Lyd'
[[link removed]]
* Palestine
[[link removed]]
* Sarah Ema Friedland and Rami Younis
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit portside.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 



########################################################################

[link removed]

To unsubscribe from the xxxxxx list, click the following link:
[link removed]