Annemarie Jacir Talks Toronto Premiere Historical Epic ‘Palestine 36’

In conjunction with her TIFF Gala world premiere, Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir (“Wajib”) talked about her fourth feature, historical drama “Palestine 36,” which is the Palestinian entry in the international feature Oscar race. The film is a Palestine-UK-France-Denmark-Qatar-Saudi-Jordan production, starring Hiam Abbas and Jeremy Irons.

Set in 1936, the film delves into the restless region as rising numbers of Jewish immigrants flee European antisemitism and find new homes in the region while the Palestinian population unites in the largest and longest uprising against Britain’s 30-year rule. Jacir’s characters include Palestinian farmers, city dwellers, revolutionaries and British officers in a portrait of the human stakes at play.

It made its world premiere Sept. 5 at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival. Watermelon Pictures is repping North American rights; France’s MK2 films and Lucky Number are co-representing international rights.

The film offers a new perspective on the Palestinian uprising against the British Mandate.

You are right. It was a question I also had. Why hasn’t this story been explored before? It is one of the most pivotal moments in our history as Palestinians. And it sets the stage for everything, absolutely everything, that comes after.

How did you prepare for such a massive production?

On a practical level, we began pre-production 10 months before shooting — normally, we begin official preproduction three months ahead of a shoot. But because the scope of this was so immense — it was the biggest film any of us had ever worked on — we wanted to do it right. We spent months on location, preparing, building, planting crops, embroidering costumes. We restored an entire village in the West Bank. We built old British army vehicles at an ironsmith in Nablus. Every detail was essential.

In terms of my own directing, the practice was the same, but the scope…