Yehia for The McGill Daily (MD): I would like to start with a question that might not seem relevant. As a writer, do you have strong opinions about fonts, software, stationery, etc.? 

Curtis John McRae (CJM): Hilarious. That’s a great opening question. Yes, I have strong opinions about many of those things. It’s actually funny you should ask. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to go through the yolk website, but we have submission guidelines, and we suggest submitting work in Garamond. I’m not quoting directly here, but if you don’t, you’ll be taking a side in a tireless, endless debate within yolk. I fall on the side of Garamond. So if anyone reading this is thinking about submitting, please do take Garamond. I’m a big fan of Garamond. Also Goudy Old Style. I don’t know if you know about it, but it’s got a bit more kick in it, a bit more pizzazz. 

MD: How did yolk come about, and how did you become involved in it? 

CJM: So yolk began about three years ago. I co-founded it with a couple of friends. It started between myself and my best friend, who is the current fiction editor, Alexandre Marceau. We had been trying to start writing workshops for a couple of months with no success. Eventually, Alex pivoted and said we should start a project and get a literary journal going  – gather a couple of friends, people we know who write, and just start this passion project. That’s how it began. Initially, we were five or six members, and we just met up on Sundays in a park and had discussions about our vision for the journal – what we wanted to add to the already rich literary scene in Montreal and Canada at large. We just found ourselves sort of falling into a rhythm and started assigning some tasks and roles and the next thing we knew we had our first print publication in our hands.

MD: Did you have a background in creative writing before yolk? 

CJM: The original members were just a group of friends. Alex, the fiction editor I just mentioned, and I have known each other since high school. Neither of us was studying creative writing, but we were big readers. I was working at Chapters, for instance, and was just constantly reading whatever and whenever I could. Alex was similar, so we always had that in common. Then we basically just brought on friends. The former editor-in-chief, Josh Quirion, was a friend of Alex’s. So he brought him on. I had brought on Sean Lee, the former social media manager, now social media projects. It was all very informal. We were passionate about literature, talking about it and writing it. But it was only later that we kind of in our own ways entered into [writing] programs. I had been studying English literature when I began yolk and then went on to complete my MA at Concordia. Josh was the only one who had graduated from a creative writing program when we began. Like I said, it was all very informal. Just a couple of friends with a shared passion for literature.

MD: What is yolk trying to do? 

CJM: That’s a big one. I would say that our project mandate is two-fold. The obvious one is the journal (the print and digital publication). For that, we’re just looking to cultivate a platform for both emerging and established writers to appear alongside each other in print and on our website. I guess, more broadly, we want to create a platform for good literature, for new writers and established ones, but also for experimental writers – perhaps for stories that might not find a home in a traditional journal. We’re looking for new, exciting, and fresh literature. We want to give a home for that. We’re also trying to keep the print journal alive. We’ve already seen some of our counterparts fold and transition exclusively to digital publications. So we find it very important to maintain that physical medium. We do this for many reasons, but one of the fundamental ones is that, for a writer, seeing their name in print is incredibly encouraging. To actually hold the journal in your hands and see your name on the page and see all the other pieces beside your piece.
 It’s very exciting. 

The second mandate is to create a sense of community. Beyond our publication, we’re very active in running and hosting events, curating spaces that aren’t exclusive to literature but welcoming to the art scene in general. So we’ve had performance art exhibitions, pop-up poetry events, readings. We’re just trying to curate a communal space for artists to gather in Montreal as well as publish their work.

MD: How different of an experience would it be for an artist to submit their work to yolk compared to a larger literary journal? 

CJM: As a newer literary journal in Canada, I think yolk can expose writers to a lot of unique elements and aspects of the editorial process. That’s just one way of looking at it, which is to say that writers work quite closely with our editors and get a lot of time and engagement with the editors. There is also a certain amount of care and attention we can afford because we’re dealing with a smaller pool of writers. We can champion them, create events for them, advertise for them, and bring them into a preexisting literary community. There are many advantages to small literary journals, but one of them is that sense of community and closeness that a writer may not feel while publishing in some of the bigger journals. 

MD: I wanted to talk about your last issue, “The Canadian Issue.” In the forward, written by the former editor-in-chief, you say that “there is a certain responsibility in defining what citizenship means” and that your “privilege is that you can try.” Why did you choose for this issue to be “The Canadian Issue,” and did you manage to define what it means to be Canadian? 

CJM: The short answer is no. But I think that’s a very long and ongoing project that we’re just trying to contribute a small footnote to. As to why we decided to do “The Canadian Issue,”, there were two reasons. It’s our fourth issue, so, of course, we’re still reinventing and experimenting with the model. Previously, we had been accepting international submissions, and we thought it would be interesting to see what it would be like to only accept submissions from Canadian artists. So it was also about giving a platform to elevate Canadian writers and their voices. That was the initial idea, but we recognized that “Canadian” can be a very troubled term. We wanted to be very loose about what “Canadian” meant, and we landed on the side of Canadian citizens abroad or anyone residing within Canada. Again, I don’t think we answered the question of what it means to be Canadian.
 But we’ve given a platform for Canadian artists, loosely defined, to publish their work.

MD: I wanted to learn more about the process of producing yolk. After the submission deadline has passed and you have acquired all this material, what happens next?

CJM: Every time I finish a new print issue, it feels like I’m reflecting on a fever dream. Then I need a month of just going to the spa. Kidding, but it’s quite intensive. Once the submission deadline has closed and we enter the stage where we’re selecting the work, we have genre pods. What that means is that our genre editors spearhead their own pods of readers. Those readers are both internal, like from the yolk masthead, and external. It’s within those pods that the selection is made. The genre editor, alongside the editor-in-chief, has the final and ultimate say over what makes it from the shortlist to the journal. By bringing in new minds and new readers, we keep it fresh while maintaining a consistency of style.

MD: What about the order in which pieces appear in the issue? How do you decide that?  

CJM: That’s a great question. You asked the right person because that’s always been my job. This is a question I’ve been trying to answer myself for all four of these issues because there’s no strict formula that I’m following. It’s very intuitive. I actually print everything out and spread it all out across this large wooden table I have at home. I read through everything two, three, four times. I start to mark recurring themes or subject matters in a notepad, and then I’ll start to arrange the pieces based on that. Then I’ll ask myself some questions: What progression do I want to show in the journal? What kind of art do I want to show? Or do I want it to be anti-art and sporadic? Based on that, I’ll start arranging the journal into a progression of themes. I’m always moving
 things around.

MD: How do you pick the cover design? 

CJM: For the first volume, we used the artwork of Marion Dale Scott, who was a Canadian painter. The original project was to begin to trace a trajectory of Canadian literature and art through the cover art, which we haven’t abandoned. For volume two, we selected work from what was submitted by artists to the journal. We thought it might be cool to juxtapose an artistic timeline of Canadian art with the contemporary art
 being submitted.

MJ: Did any of you have publishing experience before working on yolk? 

CJM: That’s a great question. None of us had experience. We figured it out by “faking it till you make it.” Honestly, I think what really helped us along was that we were always fuelled by a passionate group of volunteers who felt that there was nothing that couldn’t be surmounted. When the time to print came around, we asked, what do we have to do to do this? We just kept moving forward, asking lots of questions, and now it’s just a sort of a repeat process. There’s a lot of plug-and-play that goes on, and then we send the documents to the printing press we have a partnership with. A couple of weeks later, we get a bunch of boxes on our front doorsteps with the print issues.

MD: Do you foresee any funding coming soon? 

CJM: Yes. Since I began as editor-in-chief, I’ve assembled a funding committee who are exclusively working toward that. We’ve finally managed to check off a lot of boxes that make us eligible for a lot of the funding. But it takes money to get money. Most funding bodies want you to prove to them that you have passed the test of time. A lot of them require you to already pay your contributors, to be running for at least two years, and to have a certain amount of copies in circulation – something like 750. It’s expensive to finally qualify, but after three years running, we’ve just about got there. 

MD: What do you look for in an art submission? 

CJM: I’m not looking for anything particular in the work besides being stopped – being arrested. That can happen in many ways. It can be a fresh and exciting voice or a surprising turn within a piece. There are many sorts of elements of craft, style, and voice that can elicit that reaction. But the truth of the matter is, I want originality in style, content, and voice – something that, after I read it, I’m going to be thinking about for the rest of the day. I think that can only be achieved through originality. I think that’s what excites readers in general – when they come across something ever so subtle that it stops them in their tracks. 

MD: Everyone working at yolk is a volunteer, and you invest a lot of time and effort into this. Why do you do it? 

CJM: I ask myself that question all the time. Sometimes with high energy and sometimes with defeat. I think that people are thirsty for community spaces and for a place to publish their work. I know there are already other journals, but I think there’s room for more. I think that yolk has a unique tone and energy that people are excited about, and we want to keep that. I think, too, that the idea of a literary journal is incredibly important in the greater literary sphere. It’s important for platforming emerging writers. It’s democratic and egalitarian in a sense; you have emerging and established writers alongside each other. So it’s a useful tool for writers from all walks of life and at all levels
 of experience.

As an aspiring writer myself, I love the idea that the literary journal is not a dying medium but one that’s seeing a new surge of energy. If I can have any way to contribute to that, then I consider myself lucky.

MD: What’s your vision for yolk’s future? 

CJM: My dream is that the journal acquires funding. With that funding, we’ll be able to focus on establishing ourselves as at least a biannual print journal, and we’ll be able to maintain a very active online presence through more digital publications. But, most importantly, I think that yolk wants to embed itself not only in the Canadian literary sphere but in the Montreal one. One way we are hoping to do that is to procure a venue space where we can host events more frequently. If not in our own space, we’d like to continue to have events in Montreal. So to have a bigger, more consistent, and more frequent presence within the literary landscape is what we’re hoping to do.

***

Visit www.yolkliterary.ca to learn more about yolk!

The post How to Run a Literary Magazine appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Yehia for The McGill Daily (MD): How did you become the owner of Maktaba? What did your path look like? 

Sundus Abdul Hadi (SAH): Well, I am an artist and a writer. I put out two books during the pandemic. I entered the world of books as a writer and as a person who is connected to a really beautiful community of writers, readers, and artists. With Maktaba, the idea started with the question: what does it mean to create a space for us? A space for not just me, Sundus, the artist and the writer, but my greater community. Whether it’s the community of people in Montreal who have been seeking a space where they feel represented, whether as Arabs or as deeply rooted people who want to have a cultural experience rather than just a commercial one. I always say that even though Maktaba is a business, it is first and foremost an art project and a space – a cultural space.

MD: Can you tell me a little bit about the boutique in general and about this new merch drop? 

SAH: The boutique is my husband’s brainchild. Yassin has been making merch for 15 years. Each T-shirt he makes is a conversation-starter. So we wanted to approach the Maktaba boutique the same way. We wanted to make wearable messages. And with the General Federation of International Women, I felt like we were at a time when we just wanted to be able to show as much solidarity as possible with what’s happening, especially in Iran, but also across cultures where there’s this beautiful show of strength and solidarity for women. That was the approach. The original image behind the drop is from a vinyl record that was gifted to us by the General Federation of Iraqi Women. And we always saw it as a T-shirt. We knew we wanted to do something with it in this way. 

We’ve been doing drop chapters. So when we first opened, it was chapter one: Medium of the Message. And the second chapter was Love Language. And the third chapter is the General Federation of International Women. They provide different ways for us to express ourselves and express what Maktaba stands for. 

MD: I wanted to ask you about the book selections. There are specific categories and specific books. Are you the one who picks the books that get showcased? 

SAH: Yeah, it was kind of like me channelling my creativity. My creativity came out in how to curate the book selection or how to select it and put it together and how to create a journey for people browsing. So the categories are nontraditional. And so the titles themselves are like food for thought.

I like people to start from right to left. Everything is Political, and that moves us into Black Power, Theory and Thoughts, Palestine, and then Edward Said. The second layer is books about Self Care, Community Care, Self Knowledge, Creative Self, Ancestral Knowledge, and Perspective Shift. So I think the top layer is a lot more political and a lot more theoretical, like the brain. And then the second one is very much about the self, your roots, your ancestry, your body. And then the third one goes into our planet: Indigenous Futures, Magical Realism, Deeply Rooted Fiction, and Octavia’s World. 

Our Planet and Indigenous Futures are a continuation of the Perspective Shift and Community Care. And then we get into the Deeply Rooted fiction and the books that I’m also very passionate about, which are books that really expand your imagination, that are written by people from what I call deeply rooted communities. So everything from SWANA (Southwest Asian/North African), Indigenous, and Black communities as far and wide as you can imagine that have ancient cultures. And then the last row covers femme and queer writers. On our table, we have featured books. We have some art and design books and poetry, and we also have books about music and vinyl.

MD: You have a section in the bookstore devoted to Edward Said. What does he mean to you and to the Maktaba? 

SAH: If not for Edward Said, Maktaba wouldn’t exist. He’s an OG. He paved the path. He inspired our generation. He inspired me and Yassin. His work impacted our work, the way we see the world, the kind of lens through which we view representation, and the significance of that word.

Because I’m a media studies graduate, and so is Yassin, we’ve always approached the consumption and the proliferation of information and media from an observer’s place. So instead of just taking and consuming the information, cultural theorists like Edward Said basically allow you to take an observer’s position and think about things in a much more complex way. By doing that, it actually simplifies things so much more because you start to see the bigger picture. 

MD: We are now sitting in the majlis. Why do you have this space? Why is Maktaba Bookshop not just a bookstore? 

SAH:  I guess the majlis for me was a really important space to have for many reasons. First of all, it feels like an extension of home for me. It’s something that makes you immediately want to just get cozy, take off your shoes, and sit down. When your seat is very low and close to the ground, I feel like it opens you up in a different way. It just relaxes you. It encourages conversations that are very down-to-earth. There’s no pretence about it. That’s number one. Number two: this space is amazing because it can get activated in so many different ways. We have a space to project on the wall for screenings. We’ve had poetry readings here. We’ve had different kinds of gatherings of minds and people. We’re planning a program for the fall and the winter that’s going to just activate the space even more on a regular basis. We have different kinds of workshops planned here. All kinds of different reasons to get people into the space, to connect on different levels. 

On a good day, when it’s quiet in the shop, it’s the best place to disconnect from the hustle and the bustle in the city and the routine of your day and just come in here with some reading material.
 It’s really calming.

For me, it’s an offering. It’s an offering in the same way that opening a bookstore is an offering. Bookselling is a very humble business. I think that’s part of why I’m so attracted to it. It’s an offering for your community and an offering to create spaces that are comfortable and that encourage community and bring people together, engage them, ignite ideas and creativity and imagination and knowledge of self. That, to me, is the ultimate goal and the best intention to set
 with Maktaba.

MD: You mentioned earlier that you thought there was a need for this space. Can you elaborate on that?

SAH: I can only speak for myself. As a lover of books and reading, I always struggle to find spaces for books other than, of course, the amazing independent bookshops in Montreal, which for me are the best. And there isn’t a lot here, by the way. We have very few independent bookshops. So when we opened, we received really warm support from other independent bookshops in Montreal, which for me was the best feeling. And it reiterated how humble bookselling is as a business. But, yeah, what were my choices? Either ordering off Amazon, which I had almost completely stopped doing more than two or three years ago, or going to places like Indigo. Indigo’s founder is also the founder of a charity organisation called Loan Soldiers, where they donate a portion of their proceeds every year to buying books for IDF soldiers. Yeah, I don’t want to donate to
 that cause. 

So you’re kind of  stuck in a situation where you want to find your materials and your books and your resources, but you’re limited when it comes to where to get them from. When I decided to open Maktaba, I spent my book royalty money on buying books for the bookshop. I won’t take funding from just anybody. 

MD: Personally, I didn’t know I needed a place like Maktaba until it existed.

SAH: Yassin and I always say that, actually, if we had had a place like Maktaba when we were in university, we would have had such a completely different experience. We spent our whole time at university on the sidelines, on the margins, creating our own spaces or having these very insular experiences. So if we had had a place like Maktaba, I wonder what a different experience that would have been. It’s a real privilege for me to be able to offer that to a new generation of young Arabs in Montreal, whether they are at university or not. It’s just been so beautiful seeing people come in here and say exactly what you just said. I didn’t know I needed a place like this.

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Do Revenge is peculiarly structured, which is the best thing about it in my opinion. The movie shatters the expectations of the viewer with every turn. Its interesting narrative structure and its creative plot will keep you on your toes throughout the movie. The movie also has strong performances from the main cast and a delightful supporting role for Sarah Michelle Gellar as the headmaster. All of this results in an entertaining story, but Do Revenge does not offer much else. 

In terms of plot, there is no apparent reason why Do Revenge had to take place in a high school setting. The movie’s instigating action is the release of Drea’s sex tape. Drea confronts her boyfriend Max (Austin Abrams) and accuses him of releasing the tape. Max denies the allegation and faces no consequences. Drea then meets Eleanor, who was also betrayed by a trusted friend. This story could have taken place in a university setting or even in a work environment – a choice that would have made sense given the ages of the actors involved. Camilla Mendes, Maya Hawke, and Austin Abrams are 28, 24, and 26 years old respectively. There must be a thematic reason for the
story’s setting. 

Euphoria’s creators wanted to address the struggle of teenagers’ dependence on sex and drugs. Booksmart was a commentary on the pressures that teenagers feel toward the end of their high school years. Do Revenge, for its part, is a commentary on the way status and identity shape the lives of teenagers. Looking at these stories thematically rather than narratively, it starts to make sense why the artists behind them have chosen high school as their setting. Do Revenge, however, fails to contribute a meaningful insight to the subject it attempts to address. It is instead an entertaining yet hollow teen-friendship movie that serves more as an homage to the ’90s classics of the genre than as a standalone piece of art. 

Do Revenge doesn’t shy away from comparisons with other teen-friendship classics. In fact, it encourages them. Watching the movie, you may notice references to classic ’90s movies and tropes – the school uniforms inspired by Clueless (1995), the makeover montage and the newcomer being introduced to the high school cliques on a first-day tour. The movie also mentions “Glennergy”— a reference to Glenn Close’s role in Fatal Attraction (1987). The self-referential aura that surrounds the movie creates a disconnect between the viewer and the story. It doesn’t feel like you are watching teenagers face the challenges that the plot dictates for them, but rather adults role-playing as teenagers. The characters speak in the way adults think teenagers speak, but this is not how they actually talk to each other. In other words, the movie is a fantasy.

These elements might have been Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s artistic choice. She might have had no intention of creating a “realistic” portrayal of Gen Z but rather wanted to answer the question: what if one of those classic ’90s movies took place in the 2020s? Regardless of intention, however, I believe that Robinson still has to answer for the strange choices she makes as a co-screenwriter and as a director. 

Drea is a woman of colour raised by a single parent. She goes to Rosehill, a renowned private high school, on an academic scholarship and has been struggling to fit in there her entire life. Her socioeconomic background affects many of her choices throughout the movie. Class struggle is therefore a focal point of the movie. Namely, the movie is responsible for examining and addressing the reasons Drea’s background affect her actions. This was addressed ineffectively in the movie.   

For example, one scene at the beginning of the movie shows Max, the senior class president, giving a speech to the students and announcing the creation of the “Cis Hetero Men Championing Female-Identifying Students League.” The camera then pans to the crowd, who seems to support the idea. The camera then finds Drea, who gives a disbelieving and mocking look. The irony in this scene is clear, and the movie wants it to be clear. It wants the audience to say: “this could never happen in real life; no one could be this oblivious.” This type of irony is used throughout the movie. It is the movie’s main tool for critiquing the social dynamics of high school. The problem with this technique, however, is that it does not achieve what the writers intend for it to achieve. 

In his essay, E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction, David Foster Wallace states that “irony’s singularly unuseful when it comes to constructing anything to replace the hypocrisies it debunks.” This is exactly what happens in Do Revenge. Irony and nonchalance are used to mock and downplay many of the issues that this generation faces, but the film never offers a solution or a suggestion on how to overcome these issues. The movie is pointing a finger towards problems that we already know exist. Do Revenge has strong performances all around, especially from Maya Hawke, and features a creative structure and an entertaining plot. Unfortunately, it is another inauthentic representation of Gen Z that focuses more on mimicking the vocabulary and wardrobe of “Gen Z-ers” than on portraying the complex emotions that come with being a member of this generation.

The post The Forced “Gen-Zification” of Media appeared first on The McGill Daily.

From March 21 to April 7, the Macdonald-Harrington building hosts the Souq Stories: Reclaiming the Commons exhibition. I sat down with curators Amir Marshi and Layan Salameh to talk about the exhibition and Palestinian activism. 

Amir, studying at the University of Chicago, is from Nazareth, Palestine. He is the co-founder and coordinator of the project as well as co-founder of the Edward Said Forum for Palestinian students in the social sciences, humanities, and arts. 

Layan is an architect from Nazareth, Palestine. She is the co-founder and coordinator of the partner groups and exhibitions at Souq Stories. Layan is doing a master’s in Architecture and Urban Planning. 

The following is a short excerpt from a two-hour-long conversation with Amir and Layan. 

Yehia for The McGill Daily (MD): What did this exhibition look like in Palestine? 

Amir: This exhibition took place last June, and it took place in seven cities for seven days: Nazareth, Nablus, Gaza, Jaffa, Akka, Jerusalem, and Al-Khalil. The idea was to display these photographs in large print within the alleyways of the different souqs. So when you walked in Al-Khalil during those seven days, you would see photographs of the alleyways of Nazareth whereby you are not allowed to go from Al-Khalil to Nazareth. You don’t have the right to do so, according to Israel. So we try to create this common space and time to transcend these borders.

Here [at McGill], it’s very different. The idea is to show the distinct features of each souq but also to display them according to the overarching themes of common space, common time, and common history. We displayed the photographs all together on the wall; the idea here is to show one Palestine. When people look at Palestine, they see one portion of Palestine. We didn’t put the names of the locations. We want them to look at these spaces as first and foremost Palestinian spaces. We wanted to deconstruct and decolonize the way people look at Palestine. 

Layan: We wanted the exhibition to be accessible to all people, to whoever comes to the souqs in their daily life. We faced a couple of restrictions. The occupation power restricted our movement, our cultural activities, and our activism. In Jerusalem, we couldn’t install the photographs because the occupation power sees it as threatening to its identity, so we had to print the photos on T-shirts and give them to the merchants so that people could see them in the alleys. 

MD: Why did you decide to focus on the souq? 

Amir: We saw the souq as an inspiration. The last vestige of Palestinian sovereignty under the occupation. The souq, for us, meant our economic heartbeat, so it was important to revitalize it. We saw it as an opportunity to connect Palestinians because it’s a place that harbours a huge diversity of people. 

Layan: It has different levels. For hundreds of years, those souqs were the core of the cities. Cities and towns actually developed around them. With that comes all of the public encounters of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Now, the colonial power sees it as threatening to its identity. In order to maintain a sense of economic superiority, it suppresses those places on every level. The souq carries with it a very long history. My parents and my grandparents used to always tell me: “Oh, we lived there, and next to it there was this souq and we used to buy so and so.” Our project aims to shift the narrative from seeing those places as images of a fragmented space to images of a unified space. So when our parents talk about going from a market in Nablus to a market in Nazareth for commercial exchange, we want to see this as a narrative of connectivity. 

MD: Why are there Arabic journals behind the pictures? 

Amir: This is a newspaper for the Arab diaspora here in Montreal. I think, for me, it’s part of our long-term aim of connecting with the diaspora. It’s funny because the publisher of the newspaper came here and interviewed us, too. So, in a way, these pictures are going to sort of fade into the background and be part of this space permanently. So, yeah, that’s how you see the merging of the background and the foreground.

Layan: You can also see that many of the articles are talking about uprisings and resistance. This image of old newspapers is no longer accessible by virtue of the ever-expanding virtual world. So we wanted to exhibit those hidden newspapers, hidden stories, hidden knowledge and put it here so that people can see them. 

MD: Who are the photographers? 

Amir: That’s important because we tried to focus on young, aspiring photographers – even people who do photography as a hobby. We didn’t want to include a lot of professional photographers. We do have some professional photographers; one of them is Mustafa Al-Kharouf, who was born and raised in Jerusalem but doesn’t have any legal documentation. He’s trapped in Jerusalem because if he gets out he would never be able to come back. He’s not allowed to be unified with his family.

Layan:  Souq Stories was a place for [young photographers] to share their work. We connected with them through different social media platforms. We used our pre-existing network and we built on it and expanded it.  

MD: What were the main goals of the project? 

Amir: There are three goals: the strengthening of Palestinian unity, the revitalization of the national economy, and the empowerment of youth by virtue of connecting them across colonial borders.

Layan: We wanted a project that connects Palestinian youth with their fragmented geography. 

MD: Can you talk more about this fragmented geography? 

Layan: The movement of Palestinians is heavily restricted. We are given this paper that tells us where we can work and where we can live. Some places are better than others. In Gaza, it’s a total enclosure. It’s extremely difficult to get in or out.  This immense difficulty that Palestinians face when trying to move across different Palestinian cities contributes to the fragmentation. 

You also have all these settlements that try to make a discontinuous Palestinian state in all of the West Bank. So it also tries to fragment the West Bank itself into A, B, C areas where, for example, A is for Israelis, B is under the control of the Israeli army, and C is for Palestinian authorities. This process of fragmentation is still ongoing; it happened in 1948 and it’s still happening now. 

Both Amir and Layan wanted to stress that this exhibition was a collective effort. Many volunteers, organizations, and youth groups contributed to the project. There are two people that were supposed to come with Amir and Layan to Montreal: Waed Manaf Abbas and Shareef Sirhan. 

I contacted Waed, who is the co-cordinator of the curator group and the photography group and is on the general organizing committee for the project. I asked her about the reason she was not able to come to Montreal. 

Waed (I translated Waedís response from Arabic to English): I am from Jerusalem. People born in Jerusalem get this thing we call “the blue identity.” It’s not citizenship; it’s more like a permit that gives you the right of residence and the right to work. I have to live in Jerusalem, I have to work in Jerusalem, and I can only visit doctors in Jerusalem. I do have an Israeli social security number and access to Israeli medical care. Since I am not a citizen, travelling becomes complicated: I am considered to be stateless.  Like a lot of other people, if I want to come to Canada I have to go through the process of getting a visa – I can’t just decide to buy a plane ticket and travel. This process can get very complicated. To this day [March 31, 2022], my visa application is still pending. Even if it had gotten accepted in time, I would’ve had to give my fingerprints to an official service centre. The first office they suggested is in Amman, Jordan, which is ridiculous because I am not Jordanian. So I would’ve had to travel to Jordan in order to be able to travel to Canada. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because my application is still pending. 

MD: What were some of the main difficulties you had to deal with when you were working on the project?

Layan: A large part of the project took place during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The occupation power used the pandemic as an excuse to further restrict our movement and our freedom. They also imposed crazy fines. If you just lowered your mask from your nose you had to pay a huge amount. Of course, the pandemic was just an excuse. They are always looking for an excuse to restrict us. So we had to deal with that every time we went to the streets to work on the project. 

After talking about the exhibition, I also talked with Amir and Layan about Palestinian activism. 

MD: Do you think there is a place for Palestinian activism in the West? 

Amir: There’s a lot that people can do in the West. I mean, the West is the one responsible. All the nation-states of the West are the ones supporting Israel; they are the ones supporting Israeli companies. What’s happening in Sheikh Jarrah – the company is from the U.S., man. The money is from the U.S. 

States like Canada and the U.S. help maintain the situation. Pressure needs to be applied by people; we can’t wait for international organizations. The companies that are selling arms in Israel are from the West. The companies that are stealing land in the West Bank are selling their stuff here. Boycott those companies. Participate. 

What I hear is that McGill is very implicated. It’s lovely to see that this exhibition correlated with the passing of the SPHR’s resolution.

Layan: This colonial system wants us to believe that Palestinians who are not in Palestine – Palestinians in the diaspora – are not part of the Kadeya and are not part of the Palestinian issue. This is not true at all. It’s just a strategy to further fragment us. The work that is being done here is important. And it’s not just solidarity – I hate the word solidarity. Of course, our daily confrontation with the occupation power back in Palestine is not the same as what the people are doing here, but our social power can be constructed by the union of the many movements happening in the West. This can create a sense of unity with Palestinians across the world. 

MD: Sometimes, Palestinian activists in Canada and the West get accused of being antisemitic. What would you say is the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism? 

Amir: The difference is huge. Zionism, if you understand its history, is intrinsically tied with antisemitism. Herzl himself was antisemitic. You have a lot of evidence for this. And you see how Zionists allied themselves with Nazis in the past. How they used the fact that Jews were hated in order to garner support for their movement. Zionism is part of racism. It’s part of the same racism that created anti-semitism. The problem here is that many people see Jewish rights as Israeli rights. That’s very dangerous. 

Layan: Antisemitism became this label that Zionists use to protect themselves. 

MD: How can we highlight Palestinian narratives in Canada and the West? 

Amir: Just listen to Palestinians. Let Palestinians speak for themselves. We are very articulate, especially this generation. We know what we want and we know how to ask for it. So, yeah, it gives us the space to talk. And don’t just stand for our right for basic rights – our right for bread. We are seeking life. We are seeking sovereignty. We are seeking a future that is beautiful and hopeful. 

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. 

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As part of Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), Cinema Politica Concordia hosted a screening of Abdallah Al-Khatib’s debut film Little Palestine (Diary of a Siege) (2021). The screening was followed by a discussion with Palestinian-Syrians Osama Mousa and Farah Al-Sayed, who shared their perspectives on the movie and how they related to it. 

In 2013, Yarmouk Camp, a neighbourhood in Damascus that was originally designed as a refugee camp for Palestinians in Syria, was completely cut off from the rest of the world. The Syrian government blocked the neighbourhood in an attempt to gain the upper hand in an ongoing civil war. The residents of Yarmouk  were deprived of food, medical supplies, electricity, clean water, and other necessities. Little Palestine documents the resilience of Yarmouk’s inhabitants during the siege and the tragedies they endured.  When talking about the Palestinian refugee crisis, especially in the West, Palestinians tend to be reduced to mere statistics. By highlighting the stories of the people of Yarmouk, Al-Khatib’s film reminds us of the humanity of the people at the heart of this ongoing struggle. 

In an interview, director Al-Khatib explained  that one of his goals was to highlight the contrasting emotions that were felt during the siege. Throughout the film, we see images of joy and celebration set against images of misery and destruction. People both celebrated the marriages of the camp’s youth and mourned the elders who died of hunger and malnutrition. We see children playing, but we also see them picking grass from the ground to eat. In one scene, Al-Khatib asks a group of children about their dreams. One child says that he dreams of eating shawarma. Following him, we hear another child saying that he dreams of his brother coming back to life. These scenes remind the audience that the people of Yarmouk are not defined by their suffering. 

Mainstream Western media’s portrayal of Palestinian refugees often disregards the refugees’ dignity.  Journalists overemphasize stories of suffering for the sake of increased viewership.  Al-Khatib’s depiction does the opposite. It does not shy away from the tragic realities of the siege, but it shows those realities in a complex and, compassionate way. There are no overt images of death and blood, yet death can be felt throughout the movie. Children are not used as reductive, two-dimensional props to portray what suffering “should look like.” They play, run, learn, dance, and laugh, as all children do. Finding this balance between documenting tragic events while portraying the wholeness of a subject’s humanity is not easy, and Al-Khatib does it masterfully.  

One of the stories Al-Khatib chooses to highlight is that of his mother, Aisha Al-Khatib. Aisha volunteered as a healthcare worker during the siege of Yarmouk. With limited resources, she had to ensure the survival of dozens of the camp’s inhabitants. In the discussion after the movie, Osama, who used to help Aisha when he lived in Yarmouk, said that “she operated in a more efficient manner than most governments.” Aisha’s story shows us that the inhabitants of Yarmouk were not bystanders to a tragedy that was happening “to them.” They were actively fighting for their freedom and their dignity. This spirit of resilience is one of the main themes of the movie. 

Little Palestine reminds us all that the struggle of millions of Palestinian refugees is not just about land disputes; it’s also about the people. This sentiment is shared by Osama, who believes that “a lot of people love Palestine, but they don’t love Palestinians.” Behind the brutal realities of the siege, the filmmakers are asking their audience to see them rather than merely look at them through a reductive, dehumanizing lens. The movie urges us to remember that in wars, genocides, and sieges, the group that suffers the most is not the government or military officials but rather the people – and yet they are the ones no one talks about. I want to end this article with the same dedication that the movie ended with: “To those who starved to death.”

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The Hand of God is a reconstruction of memory – just like our own memories, both the movie’s storyline and its narrator are unreliable. This allows the  viewer to explore and understand Fabietto’s inner psyche as he lingers on his most impactful memories.

In the opening sequence we see his aunt Patrizia (Luisa Ranieri) waiting for the bus in what seems to be an interminable line. Patrizia is then picked up by San Gennaro, a 3rd-century Italian saint, after which they are seen in an old church meeting the figure of the Little Monk, a folkloric Neapolitan persona. Although other members of the family are convinced she made up her meeting with the saint and the Little Monk, Fabietto believes her. Sequences such as this establish that the movie is not interested in telling the real events but rather the events as Fabietto remembers them. Patrizia occupies a significant portion of the film since she is a very significant character in Fabietto’s life. On the other hand, Fabietto’s sister Yulia is rarely present throughout the movie because she is an inconsequential character in his life and is therefore not worth remembering. 

The warm colour palette that Sorrentino uses for the first half of the movie gives the viewer the sense of a never-ending summer; after all, this is not a real city – it’s an idealized place reconstructed from memory. When Fabietto suffers from a personal tragedy, his perception of Naples appropriately turns darker. In an interview, Sorrentino explains that Fabietto feels like he should leave the city because the city has become linked to his trauma, and he can no longer associate the city with happier memories. While Fabietto is contemplating whether he should leave Naples or not, he meets a famous director he idolizes, Capuano, at a one-woman show. They engage in a conversation which reaches a climax at a narrow cave that leads to the open sea. The young artist is then faced with a choice: embrace the city’s openness and malleability – the sea – or succumb to its narrowness and rigidity – the cave.  If he chooses the latter, he knows he will become creatively blocked and must eventually leave the city. The film doesn’t place a moral value on either choice; it presents Fabietto with both options, and the viewer must wait to see what Fabietto decides. Hometowns can mean a different thing to everyone; one may connect the city to their trauma or their success, and they may reinvent it in a way that fits their preconceived notion of what it’s supposed to look like. But to Fabietto, how the other Neapolitans see the city is irrelevant. The only version of Naples that exists to him is the version he remembers. The memories one holds of their hometown will always be subjective. The movie shares the experience of actually living in its main character’s hometown with the viewer and thus raises an interesting question: can we ever authentically experience someone’s hometown through the lens of their art?

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