Film screening: Jumana Manna, Foragers

07 December 2023. Free entry.

Film screening: Jumana Manna, Foragers

Thursday 7 December, 6pm
Location: Lumiere Cinemas, 26 Rolleston Avenue, Christchurch Central City

Join us on Thursday 7 December, 6pm, at Lumiere Cinemas for a screening of Jumana Manna’s Foragers, 2022.

Foragers depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in Palestine/Israel with wry humour and a meditative pace. Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee and Jerusalem, it employs fiction, documentary and archival footage to show 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 are 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 of the foragers and the nature patrol to courtroom defences, Foragers captures the joy and knowledge embodied in foraging 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.

Refreshments provided. This screening is free to attend–please consider making a donation to Justice for Palestine, Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa, Medical Aid Palestine or UNRWA instead.

With thanks to the artist for the generous loan of this work.

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Jumana Manna is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her work explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land and materiality in relation to colonial inheritances and histories of place. Through sculpture, filmmaking, and occasional writing, Manna deals with the paradoxes of preservation practices, particularly within the fields of archaeology, agriculture and law. Her practice considers the tension between the modernist traditions of categorisation and conservation and the unruly potential of ruination as an integral part of life and its regeneration. Jumana was raised in Jerusalem and lives in Berlin.

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The Physics Room commits to sharing our space and resources as part of our work to educate ourselves and our community about the occupation of Palestine, and to build resistance to colonial injustice at home in Aotearoa and globally.