The Promise and No Other Land – unmissable films about Palestine

Amidst the wealth of material available to anyone wanting to educate themselves about Palestine and its people, their history and experience, two films have recently become available that warrant particular attention – The Promise, a four part TV serial written and directed by Peter Kosminsky, first broadcast on Channel 4 in 2011; and No Other Land a new documentary made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective about the struggle of Palestinians against displacement in the Masafer Yatta area of the West Bank.

No Other Land, winner of the Berlinale Documentary Film Award among others, is now available in UK cinemas.  Guardian reviewer Wendy Ide wrote “If anything can be described as essential viewing, it’s this stark and unflinching account of life on the ground in a contested region of the West Bank.” As Ide notes, the film has been the subject of threats and abuse. It needs our support to make sure it is widely seen.

Thankfully, Channel 4 has recently made all four episodes of The Promise available to view on All4.  It intertwines the stories of Len, a British soldier posted to Palestine after WWII, and his granddaughter Erin who retraces his steps, taking his long-hidden diary with her on an emotional journey through modern-day Israel and Palestine. As their riveting personal stories unfold, Erin learns about what happened in the last days of the British Mandate in Palestine, and the catastrophic consequences for the Palestinian people. Events over the past 13 months make Kosminsky’s work seem even more relevant now than in 2011.

The series is based on interviews with 82 British army veterans. Most found it very hard to talk about their experience. Many had been involved in liberating the Nazi death camps at the end of the war and had started out “incredibly pro-Jewish”, as Kosminsky related in an interview with the Guardian in 2011. By the end, their allegiances had changed towards sympathy for the Arabs. Interviewer/reviewer Rachel Cooke was effusive in her praise:

The Promise … is the best thing you are likely to see on television this year, if not this decade. It is not only that it is so exciting, moving, and full of exquisite performances; it’s also that the extraordinary detail and thoughtfulness of it – the sheer scale of the canvas on which its director works – subtly imparts so many emotional and factual truths that you feel your own allegiances, whatever they may be, suddenly shifting uneasily, sometimes on a minute-by-minute basis. Revelatory is an overused word, but The Promise is exactly that: the power of its storytelling will open eyes more effectively than any leaked document, any piece of rhetoric, any news bulletin.

JVL’s political officer Graham Bash, said on re-watching the series:

 It is so prescient and moving. Everything suggested has come to pass. Perhaps the two heroes are too perfect – and it doesn’t quite get to grips with the role of the British. But how could it in a drama like this? The way the liberal Zionist parents – and their daughter – are drawn is brilliant.

For added interest, back in 2011 members and friends of Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JJP) staged an event for school students based around The Promise, with Peter Kosminsky, the Bishop of Sherborne and Rabbi Danny Rich among others. JJP released a film about it called A Heartfelt Wish which is available online.