Jaffa, The Orange's Clockwork
NEW DOCS

Running Time:
87 minutes
Screening Info:
Friday, April 9
10:10 am
Cinema Three
Director(s):
Eyal Sivan
Producer(s):
Osnat Trabelsi, Arik Bernstein, Frank Eskenazi
Editor(s):
Audrey Maurion
Cinematographer(s):
Zarif, Vincent Fooy, Rémi Lainé, Shafir Sarusi
Release Year:
2009
Country:
Israel, France, Germany, Belgium

US Premiere

Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork provides a novel perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by focusing on the symbolic significance of the Jaffa orange, one of the internationally most recognized export products of the area. Filmmaker Eyal Sivan not only traces the history of the fruit’s cultivation in Palestine starting as early as the middle of the nineteenth century, but he also examines the increasing political complexity of the role the orange played both economically and as a cultural sign of Israeli success and Palestinian loss. Interviews with those who have grown the orange for generations are juxtaposed with commentary by art critics, historians, film scholars, and the poet Haim Gourin to elucidate how both Orientalism and Zionism in various European narratives have helped destroy the initially rather benign cooperation between Palestinian and Jewish cultivators. The film is not only historically informative, but through its intelligent use of imagery it also offers memorable examples of contemporary interpretations of the famed orange.  AM