Huda Takriti



  1. On Another Note
  2. Revisitation. In Three Acts
  3. Clarity is the Closest Wound to the Sun
  4. Notes on/for a Film
  5. Fluid Grounds I
  6. Fluid Grounds II
  7. Against Nostalgia
  8. Refusing to Meet Your Eye
  9. Of Cities and Private Living Rooms
  10. Les Yeux Dans Les Yeux
  11. The Euphoric Nights in Vienna: Here and Elsewhere
  12. Starry Nights
  13. A Storytelling; I only wish I could be there...

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Unsettling the Settler. 
Frictional Images and the Subversive Potential of Film

Text for the exhibition Fictioning Palestine at Display, Prague

In his 1971 documentary The Resistance, Why?, the late Lebanese filmmaker Christian Ghazi includes a rare interview with Palestinian writer and revolutionary Ghassan Kanafani. In it, he reflects on the importance of language and how it has been weaponized by imperial powers to destroy historical revolutionary movements and the efforts of those who would dare to resist them. As one of the pioneering Palestinian writers who occupy an indisputable position in Palestinian literary resistance history, his writing encompasses political manifestos, fictional novels, and poetry. His experimental narrative techniques —such as flashbacks to historical events or places—allow literature to engage with historical contexts and challenge the established norms of storytelling. Through works of fiction, Kanafani retells the history of Palestine and re-establishes its chronology—especially that of the Palestinian resistance movement, which dates back to 1918, the year in which the British colonial troops occupied Palestine after World War I. Many artists and filmmakers from the Global South have adapted such strategies in their work, developing creative means of production to challenge the imperial and capitalist core and restore hope that a different world is possible. Militant Cinema—also known as Third Cinema—is a movement that emerged across the Global South around the same period as Kanafani’s writing, exploring how political statements could be conveyed cinematically. The Palestinian Film Unit (PFU) led by Mustafa Abu Ali, Hani Jawharieh, and Sulafa Jadallah was founded soon after the establishment of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1964. It emerged as part of militant cinema and shared the commitment of filmmakers from the global south to create a global language of anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggle. These strategies were not limited to documentary filmmaking but extended to essayistic, experimental, and fictional forms. Images became equally important as language, serving as a crucial link in awakening new meanings and contributing to the rewriting of a history that can emerge from the ruins of the past. 

The three films shown in the exhibition Fictioning Palestine —The Dupes (1973), Return to Haifa (1982), and As If No Misfortune Had Occurred in the Night (2022)—are fictional works that engage with topics deeply rooted in the Palestinian struggle and collective memory. The two feature films, The Dupes and Return to Haifa, stem from the perpetual haunting of the 1967 Naksa, while the three-channel video installation, As If No Misfortune Had Occurred in the Night, traces further back to the British occupation of Palestine in 1918. At times, fictional scenes intertwine with archival images, and at others, they confront each other directly. Yet, all three works share a haunting pull towards a corpse or a magnitude of loss, either metaphorically or physically. > read more


we can’t rewrite history
... [MUSIC]

Publication and Lecture Performance

The Setting: Living with ghosts. Ancestral inheritance can easily become a burden as the endless repetition of the past that won’t pass keeps unfolding into the present. Potential ruins. A cemetery. A living room. A wave. The cycle keeps going and going. A cemetery. A living room. A wave. The cycle becomes my method.

I have to keep reminding myself to take deep breaths before I start cursing at my monitor. A habit that I am now realizing I have inherited from my mother; she, in turn, must have inherited it from her mother, which her mother inherited from her mother. To some this anger is understood as the result of years of political turmoil, generational frustration manifesting upon decades of facing cycles of imperial violence. Others blame the short temper on the Arab sun. Or it is the natural response to avoid becoming failed witnesses—witnesses made to absorb the news at the start of every hour and move on with our lives in between. It can also be understood as a way of resisting the phantom of helplessness haunting us after the Naksa of 1967 and the consequent death of the pan-Arabist dream, the invasion of Beirut in 1982, the so-called “War on Terror,” and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The phantom of an ominous disaster nearly dissipated, allowing us to cultivate a space for hope with the start of the Arab Spring in 2010, only to resurface more dominantly shortly after, as Egypt returned to military rule, Tunisia transcended back into dictatorship, and civil wars broke out in Libya and Syria. Probably, there are bits of truth in each of these interpretations, but I lost interest in finding answers a long, long time ago. 

In my attempts at becoming a better witness, one that can weep, confront, question, interrogate, voice out, trace back, and imagine ways of living differently. Passing through became one of the methods that emerged from the substance of confronting everyday life over the past 15 years. So, excuse me if, in these passings, it seems that I am aimlessly spiralling around nothing; I am.  

I lean back in my chair, and I stop the clock.

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