Cinema Palestino: Foragers + Introduction by Social Pickle 18

This film is F-Rated

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From the archive

This film was last shown on 20 July 2024

This screening will feature an introduction exploring the themes of the film by Social Pickle, a local fermentation and preservation project that aims to share the joys of foraging, fermenting, and pickling.

Audience members are invited to join Social Pickle for a foraging walk before or after the screening: reserve your place here.

With wry humour and a meditative pace, Foragers depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in Palestine and Israel. 

Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee and Jerusalem, it employs fiction, documentary and archival footage to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs. The restrictions prohibit the collection of the artichoke-like ’akkoub and za’atar (thyme), and have resulted in fines and trials for hundreds caught collecting these native plants.

For Palestinians, these laws constitute an ecological veil for legislation that further alienates them from their land while Israeli state representatives insist on their scientific expertise and duty to protect.

Following the plants from the wild to the kitchen, from the chases between the foragers and the nature patrol, to courtroom defences, Foragers captures the joy and knowledge embodied in these traditions alongside their resilience to the prohibitive law. By reframing the terms and constraints of preservation, the film raises questions around the politics of extinction, namely who determines what is made extinct and what gets to live on.

Sheffield's Cinema Palestino started in 2009 with screenings around the 29th November, The UN International Day of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Cinema Palestino is now an annual feature at Showroom Cinema. With the key purpose to ensure a showing in the North of England of a Palestinian film, with less than 3% of films in the UK coming from the global south.

*This film has not been rated by the BBFC, therefore we cannot allow entry to those under 18.