The White Elephant
Using images shared on the Internet by Israelis during the Gulf War, the First Intifada, and trance music gatherings, Shuruq Harb paints the portrait of a Palestinian teenager in the 1990s. In the midst of Israeli pop culture and the political climate of the Oslo Accords, she comes to grips with her anxiety. It is a confrontational and sometimes darkly humorous testimony that transcends political boundaries and explores personal desires.
“Shuruq Harb’s The White Elephant is a meticulous composition that claims a new language. Remnants of our shared subconscious are woven into an emotional tapestry. In this film, fractures are visceral, and the political situation is not described but lived. While the Palestinians are confronted with the chronic side-effects of the occupation, the narration keeps going assuredly. It lingers and rearranges our understanding and perception of images.” — Noor Abed
The White Elephant was hand-picked by filmmaker Noor Abed, in a response to Mathijs Poppe’s Ours is a Country of Words. Abed (Palestine, 1988) works at the intersection of performance and film. She attended the Whitney Independent Study Program in Νew York, and the Home Workspace Program (HWP) at Ashkal Alwan, Beirut. Her work has been screened and exhibited at Anthology Film Archives, New York; Gabes Cinema Fen Film Festival, Tunisia; Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, Lagos Biennale; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Ujazdowski Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw; and the Eye Film Museum, Amsterdam, among others. In 2020, with Lara Khaldi, she founded the School of Intrusions, an independent educational collective in Ramallah, Palestine. Abed was an assistant curator for documenta 15, Kassel 2021-22, and an artist in residence at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam 2022-24.
Filmed in Shatila, a refugee camp built in Lebanon when thousands of Palestinians fled their country in 1948. At an undetermined moment in the future, the refugees’ dream of returning to Palestine becomes a reality.