Hamlet in Palestine (2017) Nicolas Klotz & Thomas Ostermeier

On the occasion of a performance of Hamlet in Ramallah and a workshop with young Palestinian actors, the German director Thomas Ostermeier returns in 2012 to the Jenin camp, where his friend, Juliano Mer-Khamis, was murdered in 2011 in the streets. Mixing temporalities and image regimes, the film interweaves meetings with the entourage of the charismatic director of the Freedom Theatre with excerpts from a documentary he himself had shot. His Israeli mother was already running theatre workshops for traumatised Palestinian children, some of whom later took up arms. The nodal point of the film is the interview in prison with one of his ex-participants, a former leader of the al-Aqsa Brigades, who is a subtle combination of violent resistance and artistic activism - the German director is keen to maintain the hope that "ideas can also make a difference". A symmetry emerges between the prisoner and his friend Juliano Mer-Khamis, to whom he had offered a building to house the Freedom Theatre. One imprisoned, the other dead... The fate of the protagonists of this painful investigation confirms the connection made by the montage between the current murder and that of Shakespeare's play. Was the deceased an aporia? A bitter question which is reflected in the film's musical and rhythmic frenzy. The Shakespearean parallel is carried to the end, like a tribute to the man of theatre: it is no coincidence that Hamlet has the last word in the guise of actor Lars Eidiger, in front of a Palestinian audience that goes from laughter to tears.