Colonial archive footage of Palestinian windflowers is reappropriated as the filmmaker reflects on his own connection to the land.

When Scotland-based Palestinian filmmaker Theo Panagopoulos stumbled upon archival footage of Palestinian wildflowers in The National Library of Scotland, he decided to digitise it. Panagopoulos describes the resulting short film as an “intervention of the original footage”, as he weaves the tenderness and sincerity of his own reality into the colonial representation of his ancestral homeland. Hauntingly beautiful sounds of the ney (an ancient Arabic flute) backdrop the tensions implicit throughout the film – between memory and longing; gratitude and grief; beauty and violence – as we are left pondering what it means to archive entanglements between people and land.

CONTENT NOTES: Contains reference to colonial occupation, forced displacement and genocide.

ACCESS NOTES: Bright imagery throughout. Storytelling through visual imagery and on-screen text throughout.

Screening with Asog in Glasgow (28 September) as part of #TOAFF25.