"The Land speaks Arabic" is a film on Zionism.
The director deals with the concept of "transfer" of the Palestinians which she shows was in the Zionist leaders' minds from the very beginning of their project. Through interviews and film archives and the press from that time, she describes the means used to meet this objective.

At the end of the 19th century, Zionism, a minority political movement, appeared on the international stage. As theorised by its historical leaders, it embodied the desire to create a Jewish state somewhere in the world and particularly in Palestine. At the time and for thousands of years, "the land speaks arabic", Palestine being inhabited by the Palestinians. How would the Zionists leaders manage then to reconcile their political ambitions with the reality on the ground in Palestine at that time? The solution had been planned out well before the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The Zionist leaders developed plans, set them and later carried them by transferring the Palestinians out of their land. All possible means would be employed. Based on Zionist leader's quotations, unused footage, the press of that period, official documents, interviews of historians and testimonies of pre 1948 Palestinians, "The Land speaks Arabic" trains a historian and a filmmaker's eye on the explosive truth, that of the cleansing of the land of Palestine by the Zionists.

Greece, 2007
Director : Maryse Gargour
Camera : Hanna Abu Saada, Stelios Apostolopoulos
Sound : Alaa Khoury
Editing : Despina Kontargyri
Historian commentator: Professor Nur Masalha
Production : Bad Movies (Athenes, Greece), Rose Production (France)
Sales : Julie Trouvé (Malakoff, France)

Format: DV Cam - 4/3 - PAL. Colour and B&W
Running time: 1h01 mn
Year of production: 2007

FIPA 2009, Biarritz
* Creative Documentaries


________________

No final do século 19, irrompe no cenário europeu o sionismo, movimento político ainda minoritário entre os judeus. Conforme foi teorizado por seus líderes, tratava-se do desejo de se criar um Estado judeu em algum lugar do mundo, particularmente na Palestina. O subsequente movimento de imigração em massa de judeus para a região teve efeitos devastadores sobre a população local, que passou a ser progressiva e paulatinamente desenraizada e expulsa da terra. Mais que tentar provar um ponto de vista, o filme dá voz a um dos principais historiadores palestinos da atualidade.

Trata-se de Nur Masalha, que explica a história de seu país antes da criação do estado de Israel de maneira clara, ponderada, baseada tanto na vivência de seus antepassados como em arquivos israelenses recentemente abertos.


País: França
Ano: 2007
Título original: La Terre Parle Arabe
Direção e roteiro: Maryse Gargour
Produção: Bad Movies
Duração: 61'
Formato: BetaCam, Colorido
Legendas: Português por Isabel Cristina Meleiro e Said Bichara

Festivais:
Premiado em três categorias do Prix International du documentaire et du Reportage Meditereneen, em Torino, incluindo o notório "Memory of the Meditterrranean" (Itália, 2008)
FIPA (International Festival of Audiovisual Programs), Biarritz (França, 2009)