Lead: Annemarie Jacir’s Palestine 36, which premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, reconstructs the 1936–1939 Palestinian revolt through a wide ensemble and archival footage, producing a visually striking but narratively uneven film that earned a B- in early festival reviews.
Key Takeaways
- Palestine 36 is an ambitious, large-cast period drama by Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir.
- The film focuses on the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine and spans village, urban and port settings.
- Standout performances include Saleh Bakri and Karim Daoud Anaya; Hiam Abbas and Jeremy Irons appear in smaller, pivotal parts.
- Jacir integrates archival images and intertitles; three cinematographers and detailed costume work give the film strong visual texture.
- The narrative’s breadth and episodic structure make character arcs feel underdeveloped for international audiences unfamiliar with the history.
- Production was affected by events after October 7, which complicated preproduction in Palestine.
- Critics note the film’s urgency and moral purpose even as it sometimes sacrifices clarity for scope.
Verified Facts
Palestine 36 centers on the early phase of the 1936–1939 Palestinian revolt against British mandate policies and growing Jewish immigration. Jacir stages multiple micro-histories rather than following a single family, using a sprawling ensemble to represent landowners, peasants (fellahin), laborers and urban intellectuals.
Key characters include Yusuf, played by Karim Daoud Anaya, a young man from Al-Basma who becomes a driver and is later drawn into the revolt; Khalid (Saleh Bakri), a Jaffa laborer radicalized after workplace violence; and Afra (Wardi Eilabuni), who receives a formative speech from her grandmother, portrayed by Hiam Abbas. Yasmine Al Massri appears as Khuloud, a journalist using a male byline, and Jeremy Irons plays the High Commissioner. Billy Howle is credited as the Secretary to the High Commissioner.
Jacir punctuates the film with dated intertitles (the first marked March 1936), archival clips of Jewish refugees arriving from Germany, and sequences that depict strikes, detentions, and guerrilla actions. Hélène Louvart is one of three credited cinematographers, and Hamada Atallah is noted for costume design that underscores social distinctions across settings.
The film premiered at TIFF 2025 and, as of the festival, was seeking U.S. distribution. Early critical appraisal from festival screenings gave the film a B-, praising its visual power and moral urgency while critiquing its narrative diffuseness.
Context & Impact
Jacir’s project aims to reframe a formative but often overlooked chapter that precedes the Nakba. By examining 1936–1937 social fractures—between landowners, peasants, press figures and colonial administrators—the film attempts to show how competing loyalties and imperial policy shaped later developments.
For viewers outside the Arab-speaking world, the film’s episodic structure and many named incidents (the strike, the Peel Commission recommendation, local confiscations) may feel dense without supplementary context. Several reviewers suggested the material might be better served as a limited series to allow fuller character development.
At the same time, Palestine 36’s archival collage and sound design create a throughline that links small, intimate losses—burning fields, interrupted childhoods—to long-term political consequences felt today, a connection that will resonate with audiences attuned to historical lineage.
Jacir described the film in press materials as stemming from a “river of research,” a phrase she used to convey the project’s archival depth and layered approach to storytelling.
Annemarie Jacir / press notes
Unconfirmed
- Whether Jacir intended Palestine 36 primarily as a direct commentary on contemporary Gaza rather than as an archival reconstruction is open to interpretation.
- The extent to which October 7 directly altered specific production elements (locations, casting, or schedule) is reported but not fully documented in public production notes.
- Audience comprehension among non-Arab viewers depends on prior historical knowledge and may vary; this is an observed risk rather than a quantified outcome.
Bottom Line
Palestine 36 is a visually arresting, morally urgent film that ambitiously maps an origin story for modern Palestine across many lives and locales. Its strengths are archive-driven imagery, costume and cinematography, and moments of powerful performance; its weakness is an overambitious scope that blunts character development and historical clarity. For viewers interested in cinematic historiography and anti-colonial narratives, the film is essential viewing even if imperfect.