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Old Friday, January 27, 2023
hammadtahir hammadtahir is offline
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Post 2021 Precis

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Nizar Hassan was born in 1960 and raised in the village of Mashad, near Nazareth, where he has lived with his family. He studied anthropology at Haifa University and after graduating worked in TV. Starting in 1990, he turned to cinema. In 1994, he produced Independence, in which he pokes his Palestinian interlocutors about what they think of the bizarre Israeli notion of their “independence”. They have stolen another people’s homeland and call the act “independence”! Hassan dwells on that absurdity.
As the world’s attention was captured by the news of Israel planning to “annex” yet a bit more of Palestine and add it to what they have already stolen, I received an email from Nizar Hassan, the pre-eminent Palestinian documentary filmmaker. He wrote to me about his latest film, My Grandfather’s Path, and included a link to the director’s cut. It was a blessing. They say choose your enemies carefully for you would end up like them. The same goes for those opposing Zionist settler colonialists. If you are too incensed and angered by their daily dose of claptrap, the vulgarity of their armed robbery of Palestine, you would soon become like them and forget yourself and what beautiful ideas, ideals, and aspirations once animated your highest dreams. Never fall into that trap. For decades, aspects of Palestinian and world cinema, art, poetry, fiction, and drama have done for me precisely that: saved me from that trap. They have constantly reminded me what all our politics are about – a moment of poetic salvation from it all.
Nizar Hassan’s new documentary is one such work – in a moment of dejection over Israel’s encroachment on Palestinian rights and the world’s complicity, it has put Palestine in perspective. The film is mercifully long, beautifully paced and patient, a masterfully crafted work of art – a Palestinian’s epic ode to his homeland. A shorter version of My Grandfather’s Path has been broadcast on Al Jazeera Arabic in three parts, but it must be seen in its entirety, in one go. It is a pilgrimage that must not be interrupted.
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Precis:
Nizar Hassan is an eminent Palestinian filmmaker. In his previous documentary, "Independence," he has forced his viewers to examine their pre-conceived notions of Israeli independence, which is akin to occupying another people’s land. Palestinian arts and literature, like his films, have prevented men from falling into the trap of self-pity and self-righteousness and turning into your enemies by persistently reminding them of the ideals for which they used to strive. Hassan’s latest documentary, "My Grandfather's Path," which addresses the illegal expansion of Israel, has invoked the same feelings in the writer of this passage by providing him some closure. Besides being long and comprehensive, it is indeed a magnum opus that rightfully addresses the plight of the Palestinians.

Title: Hassan's Masterpiece: My Grandfather's Path
Words in Precis: 118
Required Words: 115
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