Mahdi Fleifel Director of After the Last Goal

Sanad Project – Documentary (Post-Production)

It is a long way from the refugee camp of Ain El-Helweh in Lebanon to the shining city of London, but for Mahdi Fleifel it is worth the travel. The young Palestinian filmmaker whose shorts were successful in many festivals has his new documentary project on his football loving compatriots as part of SANAD selection.

The Young Will Forget is about the feeling of excitement invading Palestinian refugee camps during the football World Cup. Considering that having no country means having no chance to take part, what does this mean to you?

Actually, my new film is not so much about the World Cup but more about memory and ’the need to remember’. The title The Young Will Forget (its working title was After the Last Goal) - refers to a quote by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, who famously said about the dispossessed Palestinians that, one day "The old will die and the young will forget". Making this film for me has been a way of challenging that. Forgetting for us Palestinians would simply mean ceasing to exist. Our fight throughout history, and still today, is to remain visible. Making my film is a way of reinforcing and strengthening our collective memory. But most important, it was to make a record of my own family history, a history of three generations, a record of a dispossessed family living as refugees in Lebanon and emigrants in Europe. Basically it is an attempt at exploring the state of being in exile.

Since you spent your childhood in a refugee camp, we can say you make movies there as a native. Could you describe any special gift that you got from there as a filmmaker?

I am blessed to have the life I have today with all the experiences and contradicting imprints it has left me with over the years. Born in Dubai, raised in Ain El-Helweh and later Denmark, and now living and working in London, I feel I have been blessed with my own unique experience of being Palestinian. And being Palestinian is a different story every time, depending on who you ask. What unites us is the 1948 Nakba, our own personal ’Big Bang’, our reference point. Growing up with my father’s sense of humor and his curiosity to record his surroundings (he has always been obsessed with video cameras) I have shared his enthusiasm and the necessity to tell stories. And Ain El-Helweh is full of stories. All you have to do is to sit at the market and listen to old men gossiping about each other or reminiscing times past.

Your previous film Arafat & I told the funny story of a young Palestinian boy who meets a girl with some unbelievable characteristics, especially sharing a birthday with Yasser Arafat. Is humor unique to a particular culture?

I guess having grown up in Ain El-Helweh before moving to Denmark, I have coped with transition in my life by seeing the world in a rather comic and cynical way. I believe that my stories reflect my history while at the same time being influenced by London, the place where I currently live and work. Also, I think that Palestinians, in particular from Zaffourieh, have a terrific sense of humor, maybe only matched by Jewish or Balkan humor.

Your films usually mix the languages of documentary and fiction in a unique way. Which one do you prefer?

I don’t distinguish the two as such, but the authenticity in each moment is crucial. I feel that finding the truth is the most important aspect of any attempt to create cinema. I personally enjoy combining the two ’forms’, but I also respect that they each have their own sensibilities and ways into the creation of a cinematic experience, i.e. different working methods.

By Janka Barkoczi