Feature film
السكين
Khaled Hammada · 1972
Synopsis
In Gaza, after the defeat, Hamed is a dreamy boy whose life begins with a slap: his sister Mariam has given herself to Zakaria, a contemptible man who deals with the occupier. He leaves the city and sets out for the West Bank across the desert, to join his mother, who has stayed there since 1948. The desert is empty, the night is long, and he is not alone in it.
Context
It is based on the novel that Ghassan Kanafani had published in 1966, of which the director himself wrote the adaptation, and the state body produced it in Damascus with the Egyptian Souheir al-Morshidi, Rafiq Subaie, Bassam Lutfi and Naji Jabr. Kais al-Zubaidi edited it, and it was said that he had managed to gather into images the wandering of a whole people; Georges Lutfi al-Khoury was behind the camera and Solhi al-Wadi composed the music. The same body produced a second adaptation of the same writer that same year.
Who it is for
Eighty minutes in black and white, in Arabic, never released in France; the film follows a novel reputed to be difficult, which breaks up the order of time and place.
Prizes and reception
Distinction at the festival of films and programmes on Palestine in 1972; some critics judged it inferior to the novel.