Chicago Palestine Film Festival - Three Promises

THREE PROMISES

2023, dir. Yousef Srouji
Palestine, Lebanon, United States, 61 min.
In Arabic

Three Promises is the story of a mother and her camera, of a son and his suppressed memories, and of an entire country. At the start of the 2000s, while the Israeli army is retaliating against the second intifada in the West Bank, Suha films her daily family life, punctuated by frequent trips underground and overwhelmed by the anguish of her two young children. At every moment of intense danger, she promises God that she will leave if they survive. In 2017, her son, the director of this film, discovers this archive and reconnects with this suppressed past, wondering with his mother what drove her to record a daily life of suffering, a stolen childhood, and why she delayed fleeing, paralyzed by the hope for change and burdened by the impossible choice between physical safety and emotional upheaval. While on the surface there emerges the heartrending portrait of everyday life in times of war, it is the staggering beauty of a mother’s love that is revealed between the lines. Blending the voice of the present with impressive family footage, Yousef Srouji completes the story begun by Suha, thus averting the act of forgetting, both personal and collective.

Preceded by the short films:

HAMZA: THE GHOST CHASING ME

2023, dir. Ward Kayyal, 18 min.

Hamza is a middle-aged man who refuses to abandon a routine he has kept since his release from Israeli jail; every day, he goes into the woods to hunt a lion that the locals don’t believe exists.

PULSE OF PALESTINE

2023 dir. Leena Nabulsi, 35 min.

Pulse of Palestine is a documentary about the West Bank, primarily its culture and its martyrs.