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Synopsis :

When a nation-wide uprising breaks out in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, a young woman in Gaza must make a choice between love, family, and freedom. Undaunted, she embraces all three, joining a clandestine network of women in a movement that forces the world to recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination for the first time. Naila and the Uprising chronicles the remarkable journey of Naila Ayesh and a fierce community of women at the frontlines, whose stories weave through the most vibrant, nonviolent mobilization in Palestinian history - the First Intifada in the late 1980s.

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A propos du documentaire :

Using evocative animation, intimate interviews, and exclusive archival footage, this film brings out of anonymity the courageous women activists who have remained on the margins of history -- until now. While most images of the First Intifada paint an incomplete picture of stone-throwing young men front and center, this film tells the story that history overlooked – of an unbending, nonviolent women’s movement at the head of Palestine’s struggle for freedom.

While the First Intifada provides the backdrop for Naila and the Uprising, its lessons transcend that particular time and place. Through the experience of countless women engaged at all levels of society, we learn what is possible when women take the lead in struggles for rights and justice -- from a movement's inception to peace talks -- and what we lose when they are stripped of their roles. Echoing struggles around the world, we also witness the tremendous power of nonviolent organizing: women's committees, drawing on all the hallmarks of civil resistance, were able to mobilize hundreds of thousands through massive street rallies, mobile health clinics, underground schools and concerted boycott campaigns, sustaining the uprising while generating indigenous self-sufficiency. In Naila and the Uprising we see how women-led civil resistance can stir the masses, put pressure on power-holders, and affect real structural change.

The film was directed by award-winning filmmaker and Just Vision's Creative Director, Julia Bacha (director of Budrus and co-director of My Neighbourhood) and produced by Just Vision's Education and Public Engagement Manager, Rula Salameh and Rebekah Wingert-Jabi (co-director of My Neighbourhood). Executive Producers include Just Vision's Executive Director, Suhad Babaa, along with Abigail E. Disney, Gini Reticker, Deirdre Hegarty, Joan Platt and the Women Donors Network.

A propos des réalisateurices :

Julia Bacha (2017)

For over a decade, whenever I've asked Palestinian grassroots leaders about the models of inspiration that they draw on, they've consistently pointed to the First Intifada. I knew after years of filmmaking in the region that, despite the First Intifada's immense status among Palestinians, it remained misunderstood internationally, shaped by a dominant narrative steeped in a law-and-order frame that largely overlooked the daily grassroots organizing at the core of the uprising. When the Just Vision team decided to conduct our own in-depth research, we came to grasp just how much of the story had been obscured. The First Intifada was not only a vibrant, strategic and sustained nonviolent civil resistance movement; for months, it was also led by a network of Palestinian women who were fighting a dual struggle for national liberation and gender equality.

We knew we wanted to bring this story to light by producing a documentary that could provide insight and wisdom from the veteran women activists of the First Intifada to today's rising leaders. We felt it was crucial to provide a more holistic account of that time, illuminating how Palestinians have historically engaged in unarmed resistance efforts, underscoring the power of civil society in creating change and elevating the role of women in movement building.

The lessons of Naila and the Uprising are as relevant today as they were in 1987. Women across the globe continue their struggle for basic freedoms and dignity. From the First Intifada to the present moment, it's clear: women's leadership in civil society organizing is vital. But too often, their work is sidelined or ignored. That's a troubling trend, particularly as a number of academic studies have demonstrated that movements that support women's leadership are more likely to employ nonviolent tactics. And those that employ unarmed civil resistance are much more likely to achieve their goals. This research resonates strongly with what Just Vision has observed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories for over 15 years, including in the successful struggle against the separation wall waged by Budrus - a village in the West Bank and the subject of our 2009 film - in which women and girls played a central role.

Our research on the First Intifada made it clear that the women in Budrus were drawing from a deep legacy. Women have consistently been a part of influential social movements coming out of the Middle East, but time and again, the cameras focus on armed men, leaving us with a narrative that not only erases women, but also misrepresents the struggles themselves, as well as the demands behind those struggles. Naila and the Uprising calls attention to those movements, in real time and historically, so that the courage and creativity of women can be amplified and leveraged. The film is also a cautionary tale for what happens when women are stripped of their leadership roles and excluded from ongoing struggles.