Jeremy Irons Praises Palestine 36: “The Genocide of the Palestinian People Began in 1890”
According to CinemaDrame News Agency, Academy Award–winning English actor Jeremy Irons shared a video on social media recommending the historical drama Palestine 36, directed by Annemarie Jacir, which premiered last week at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The Kingdom of Heaven and Die Hard with a Vengeance star plays a high-ranking official named Washope in the film. He said: “Annemarie Jacir told me about this film when we were at the Berlin Film Festival. I was astonished by her extraordinary determination to make it.”
He continued: “I think to understand this cruel behavior that is taking place these days in Palestine—this genocide, which I believe we must call genocide—you have to know its history. To understand the Palestinian people and what they have faced. Not from 1948 or 1936, but from 1890. And I think this film succeeds in doing that. I hope it will be both entertaining and enlightening, and that it will help people see more clearly what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank. And I hope it draws the world’s attention a little more to this great injustice.”
The film tells the story of a 1936 Palestinian peasant uprising against British colonial rule and follows a man named Youssef, who travels back and forth between Jerusalem and his remote village during the unrest. Hiam Abbass, Liam Cunningham, Yasmine Al Massri, and Kamel El Basha also star in the film.
