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A PLATE OF SARDINES

Directed by | Omar Amiralay

Genre documentary  |  Length: 17mins  |  Year of production: 1997


Full Title: "A Plate of Sardines, Or The First Time I Heard of Israel"

“The first time I heard of Israel, I was in Beirut, the conversation was about a plate of sardines. I was six years old, Israel was two.”

In the company of fellow Syrian filmmaker Mohammad Malas, the groundbreaking director Omar Amiralay revisits the ruins of the destroyed Golan village of Quneytra, occupied by Israel and then abandoned following the 1973 war. Shots of Quneytra (symbolically ransacked and left in total devastation by the Israeli army) provides a haunting back to this exploration of memory, place and politics. The director's accomplished blending of reenactments, interviews and landscape imagery makes A Plate of Sardines an integral and striking contribution to Arab cinema.

Omar Amiralay has been making politically courageous and artistically experimental film since the 1970s and has frequently fallen foul of the Syrian regime for his socialist commitments and unflinching critiques. He was honoured with a special session during the Pompidou Centre's Cinéma du Réel Festival in 2006.
PalestineConnect is a small grassroots charity that operates community-led centres in the Gaza Strip. These computer-aided learning centres provide disadvantaged Palestinian children and young adults with a safe and relaxed environment in which to undertake a range of IT-related courses – that compliment the UNRWA schooling system and are vocationally relevant. All centres have disabled access and facilities and offer services to children irrespective of (dis)ability and gender.
PalestineConnect is a small grassroots charity that operates community-led centres in the Gaza Strip. These computer-aided learning centres provide disadvantaged Palestinian children and young adults with a safe and relaxed environment in which to undertake a range of IT-related courses – that compliment the UNRWA schooling system and are vocationally relevant. All centres have disabled access and facilities and offer services to children irrespective of (dis)ability and gender.
PalestineConnect is a small grassroots charity that operates community-led centres in the Gaza Strip. These computer-aided learning centres provide disadvantaged Palestinian children and young adults with a safe and relaxed environment in which to undertake a range of IT-related courses – that compliment the UNRWA schooling system and are vocationally relevant. All centres have disabled access and facilities and offer services to children irrespective of (dis)ability and gender.