Palestine 36 is a 2025 historical epic written and directed by acclaimed Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir, heroically shot on location in Palestine despite ongoing genocide. Set in 1936, the film follows multiple characters — including Yusuf, a gentle young man from a village who works in Jerusalem, Khalid, a humble worker turned revolutionary, and Khouloud, an upper-class journalist — as Palestinian villages rise up against British colonial rule in what became the largest and longest uprising against Britain’s 30-year dominion over the region. With a stellar ensemble cast including Saleh Bakri, Hiam Abbass, Yasmine Al Massri, Jeremy Irons, and Liam Cunningham, the film situates the Palestinian struggle not as a recent occurrence but as a long process of dispossession that began long before the 1948 Nakba.
The film received a standing ovation at the Toronto International Film Festival so prolonged that the Q&A had to be cut short. It is a powerful corrective to the myth that Palestine was an empty land before 1947, portraying with clarity and dignity the lives, hopes, and resistance of a people fighting for their homeland against the combined forces of British colonialism and Zionist settlement. Roger Ebert’s site called it “a sweeping yet intimate historical epic” that “demands careful attention to its intricately woven storytelling, rewarding viewers with a humanist, clear-eyed act of remembrance.”
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