The Village Under the Forest A documentary by Mark J Kaplan and Heidi Grunebaum

Wednesday, March 27

7:30pm-9:30pm

Faculty House, 2nd floor Room 1

Film showing and discussion with Heidi Grunebaum and James Schamus.

Unfolding as a personal meditation from the Jewish diaspora the documentary explores the hidden remains of the destroyed Palestinian village of Lubya in the Galilee in northern Israel. Lubya's ruins lie under a purposefully cultivated forest plantation called 'South Africa Forest'. Using the forest and the ruins of the village as metaphors, the film's first person singular and plural narrative voice explores different themes related to the erasures and persistence of memory, the creation of 'facts on the ground', collective identity, the right of return, forced displacement and exile.The film is about the need to revisit interwoven histories in order to imagine a different future in which dignity, acknowledgement and co-habitation become shared possibilities.

Mark J Kaplan is an acclaimed award-winning filmmaker whose works treat themes of memory, social justice and the search for accountability. Heidi Grunebaum is a scholar and writer currently working as a senior researcher at the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape.

Sponsored by the University Seminar on Cultural Memory, the Middle East Institute and the Center for Palestine Studies