A Movie Night in Jerusalem

It does make a strong impact to watch three short films in the language that you don't understand, with subtitles in English and with a partial introduction in French. The place is in an out of the way part of Eastern Jerusalem. The language of the short films is Arabic. Before the movie starts a sparse crowd starts to gather. One can hear French, Arabic, English and Hebrew spoken. We bring our dialogue in German to this linguistic melange. The movie program is in French and Arabic. What leaves its mark is not only the place - the area of Jerusalem that looks more foreign that elsewhere - but also what the three movies quietly say to us, the viewers. A film about a family tragedies and struggles, another about a love story that falls apart, and still another one about remembering past violence while riding the everyday streets of conflict. One may argue about the aesthetic merits and demerits of films, about the relations between the tradition and modernity, about the canon and its contemporary reception. But the youth of the audience, the nearness of actors after the screening, and the other, more village-like side of Jerusalem that shows through on the way back leave a strange impact. Difficult to express, necessary to explore and important to write down. It is as if I have witnessed a cultural event that takes place between linguistic borders. A culturally borderline experience. Experiences without a translation but looking for it.