Film ‘Farha’ Continues to Stream on Netflix in Wake of UN Resolution to Mark Nakba Day
The film “Farha” based on the true story of the events of the Nakba, continues to stream on Netflix despite coordinated attacks to take it down. The film, set in 1948 Palestine, follows the story of a 14-year-old Palestinian girl whom her father hides in a locked pantry as violence breaks out. It is a story of anguish, separation, lost dreams, and intense oppression as scenes of brutality are shown through the protagonist’s perspective.
It is the first time the story of Nakba has been shown at an international stage. Nakba, translated as catastrophe, is one of history’s largest ethnic cleansing where over 750,000 Palestinians were forced out of their homes. British and Zionist forces are reported to have committed brutal acts of murder and mass executions in order to pave the way for Israeli existence on illegal, stolen land. Over 78 percent of land was captured after the Nakba.
The Deir Yessin massacre on the western outskirts of Jerusalem is remembered as one of the worst atrocities in history where 110 men, women, and children were executed point blank.
The film group for Farha, spearheaded by its Director Darin Sallam, wrote on the official ‘Farha’ Instagram page that they had received an onslaught of hate and attacks as well as attempts by the Israeli government to shut the film down.
They said Israeli media has created an organized campaign to lower the rating at IMDb.com as well as attempted to prevent the film’s screening at the Saraya Yaffa Theater in Jaffa in the midst of the film receiving an Oscar for Best International Feature in Jordan.
Furthermore, the filmmakers spoke about how silencing their voices is an anti-semitic act– “These attempts to silence our voices as Semites/Arabs and as women filmmakers to dehumanize us and prevent us from telling our stories, our narrative and our truth are against any freedom of speech.”
Supporters of the film and Palestine have flocked to social media and websites such as IMDb.com to give a good rating to the film. It currently has an 8.6/10 rating with over 70,000 reviews.
While the film has elicited hysteria, Jewish progressive outlet Mondoweiss says that the film events are actually “mild” in comparison to what actually happened in the Nakba.
“The film Farha does not portray rape, nor the blowing up of houses with their inhabitants still inside,” says Mondoweiss. They go on to write that the scene with the baby also shows some level of humanity where the soldier can not seem to smash the skull of the baby with his foot.
This comes as the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on Wesnesday, November 30th, to mark An-Nakba day, which commemorates the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land in 1948.
90 countries voted in favor of the resolution, 47 abstained and 30 voted against.
The resolution was sponsored by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which the Palestine Chronicle calls hypocritical as the coalition has signed normalization deals with Israel, “which Palestinians widely condemned as a betrayal of their cause.”
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