The Reel no. 21 or R21, comes as an addition to and a reflection on a collection of 20 16mm films, safeguarded in Tokyo by the Japanese solidarity movement with Palestine. It’s an undelivered solidarity letter written by a Japanese activist that was lost on its way to a Palestinian filmmaker. Fragments of the letter are found throughout the collection and compiled into an imagined structure that reveals itself during the film.
R21 aka Restoring Solidarity acts as a catalog, the film as a time machine, the film as an archive. The themes that Reel no. 21 deals with, reveal themselves in the form of a montage essay. At the same time, the act of restoring these films brings out motives, aspirations, and the disappearance of a generation and its struggles, not only in Japan, but around the world.
«According to Achille Mbembe, the status and power of the “archive” derives from the intertwining of building and documents. In the case of Palestine, the archive as a building does not exist, as it is under occupation and Palestinians’ documents are scattered all over the world. Therefore, when we argue that this film is an archive, we suggest its narrative structure as a “building” that contains a collection of films, of documents.
From this perspective, the film serves as an inventory of the 20 reels: all filmographic information is found in the credits, and visitors to the archive are invited to observe recurring film and political patterns. The chronological order of the film invites the viewer to independent readings, while the narration helps explore the motivations of the Japanese group.»
— Mohanad Yaqubi
