Partition fuses archival footage from the British occupation of Palestine with audio recorded of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Silent films gathered in imperial collections hold histories that have barely been told, and ways of colonial seeing that seep into the present. Recovering Palestinian presence through story, voice and song, unraveling colonial pasts through soundscapes of the precarious present, Partition is a meditation on what bodies remember and empires forget.
Country
Lebanon, Palestine, CanadaYear
2025Length
60'35"
Category
ExperimentalPremiere
Italian
Screenplay
Diana AllanCinematography
Erin Weisgerber, Elian Mikkola, Diana AllanEditing
Diana AllanMusic
Amal Kaawash, Bahaa al-JomaaSound recording
Ariane Lorrain, Hisham Merhi, Diana AllanSound design and mix
Julian FlavinProduction
Diana AllanDistribution
Ariane LorrainSynopsis
Biography
Diana Allan is a filmmaker and professor of anthropology at McGill University. She is the co-director of the Nakba Archive and holds a Canada Research Chair in the anthropology of living archives. Her publications include Voices of the Nakba: A living history of Palestine (2021) and Refugees of the Revolution: Experiences of Palestinian Exile (2014).
Statement
Partition is a non-linear, experimental film emerging from my ongoing ethnographic work with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon on histories of forced displacement and exile. Using sound recorded with Palestinians to reanimate silent colonial images from British Mandate Palestine, the film centers song as a medium of historical memory, intergenerational continuity and politics. By separating sound and image, Partition denaturalizes perception and challenges archival authority, reframing catastrophe as beginning in 1917 under British rule. Rephotographing colonial footage on 16mm was also a means to reclaim and redistribute restricted materials, asserting the right to copy as a decolonial act.
The film treats the archive as a living, participatory process, resisting its role as a static colonial depository. It interrogates how history is manufactured and how archival access shapes future heritage. Songs become bridges beyond severance, and archival intervention opens space for Palestinian presence and memory to circulate anew.
— Diana Allan
Archival materials
Partition draws upon archival sources from the colonial occupation of Palestine held in imperial collections in London.
Screenings
Sat 27.09.202518:00–20:00
The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing + Partition
Italian premiere
Q&A with director
Screening
Cinema Lumière, Sala Scorsese
Piazzetta P. P. Pasolini 2/b
Ticket fee
Sun 28.09.202520:30–22:00
The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing + Partition
Italian premiere
Q&A with director
Screening
Sala Cervi
Via Riva di Reno 72/A
Ticket fee
