Film Synopsis: Of Land and Bread

A raw account of life in occupied Palestine.

In 2007, human rights organisation B’Tselem launched their Camera Project to enable volunteers in the West Bank to document their own lives under Israeli occupation. Of Land and Bread consists solely of raw footage recorded with these donated cameras, showing first-hand the lived experiences of Palestinians.

Each vignette captures an incident – from petty humiliation to violent assault – casually perpetrated by a soldier, a policeman or a settler. Without any voiceover or mediation, this kaleidoscope of everyday injustice conveys the reality of institutionalised state terror and the impunity that emboldens its perpetrators. Palestinians lie on the receiving end of a project of dispossession of land, resources, and culture; Of Land and Bread stands as a bold act of defiance – and a strident call for solidarity.

Content notes: Depictions of violent assault (against adults and children) as well as racism, verbal abuse and Islamophobia.

WATCH, READ, THINK, ACT

Our friends at Lighthouse (Edinburgh’s Radical Bookshop) have put together specially-curated reading lists for a selection of films in this year’s programme, inviting us to delve deeper into the issues explored in our line-up. Here you’ll find a list of books recommended by Noor relating to Of Land and Bread which expand on the film’s civilian-led documentation of daily life under the Israeli occupation of Palestine, giving an overview of the extensive history and present predicament of the Palestinian struggle for sovereignty in the face of ongoing erasure and disempowerment.

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