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About Omar Al-Qattan

Omar Al-Qattan is British-Palestinian filmmaker.

Articles by Omar al-Qattan

Thursday 14th June

The secret visitations of memory

Omar al-Qattan, 14 June 2007
Palestinians' modern experience is defined by exile, remembrance and longing. How can the past give meaning to the present?
Wednesday 27th August

On going home

Omar al-Qattan, 27 August 2003
‘Return’ is a Palestinian dream, a compulsion, a wound. Is it also a curse? In retrieving the vision of a single, inclusive, secular, democratic state for Palestinians and Israelis, Omar al-Qattan argues that his people need to make a different return. It will not be to land irretrievably lost, but to the best of their own history, that they make the best of the future now available to them and their neighbours alike.
Thursday 22nd May

Eighteen hours in Ben Gurion airport

Omar al-Qattan, 22 May 2003
The detention and deportation by Israeli authorities of a British filmmaker of Palestinian origin is a lesson not just in the vicious political realities of the Middle East, but in a failure of courage by the British government.
Thursday 21st November

Diary of an art competition (under occupation)

Omar al-Qattan, 21 November 2002
When a country and its people are not free, how do its artists respond?
Thursday 19th September

Protest, the Intifada and anti-Semitism: the confusions of moralism

Omar al-Qattan, 19 September 2002
When pacifism and radical Islam join in protest to empathise with Palestinian resistance against Israel, plurality is intrinsic to the enterprise. But moral objection to violent or racist elements among the protestors needs to respect its overall character and rationale. In the great London march, this was not religion, but politics.
Tuesday 10th September

Whose Frankenstein?

Omar al-Qattan, 10 September 2002
In the West, the critical distance between citizens and the state has disappeared. This is nowhere truer than in Israel. We must reclaim it urgently.
Wednesday 17th October

Disneyland Islam

Omar al-Qattan, 17 October 2001
The struggle of the self-defined pure Islam that launched the assaults on America is itself a product of contradictory modernity. A recognition of its evasion of this reality leads beyond the fantasy it offers, says Omar al-Qattan.
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