Short Palestinian film on Sheikh Jarrah goes viral
Young Palestinian director Omar Rammal is still reaping positive reactions to his short film, "The Place," which he produced and posted on social media during recent events in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — On May 15, Palestinian film director Omar Rammal, 23, posted his short film, “The Place," on his YouTube channel, but he never expected it to go viral. “I believed it would receive broad acclaim, but not to this extent,” Rammal told Al-Monitor.
The video, which he first posted on his Instagram account on May 15, garnered more than 6 million views, and several other channels shared his film. Rammal posted his film without copyrights for it to be available to anyone who wants to repost it, so as to convey the reality in Palestine, and in Sheikh Jarrah in particular, to the whole world.
In "The Place," which is only a minute and a half long, Rammal summarizes the displacement that 28 Palestinian families are facing in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, where Israeli settlement groups are trying to expand.
Rammal deliberately posted his film on the anniversary of Nakba Day to say that the theft of Palestinian homes has been going on ever since and that the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood will not be the last, as every “place” in Palestine is targeted in light of the ongoing occupation.
