Chronicle of a Disappearance

synopsis

What does it mean to be Palestinian in the second half of the twentieth century? Filmmaker Elia Suleiman returned to the land of his birth to answer that question. Born in Nazareth in 1960, well after the establishment in 1948 of the State of Israel in historic Palestine, Suleiman lived for twelve years in self-imposed exile in New York. He returned to attempt to find his roots in a culture that had been uprooted. Chronicle of a Disappearance is a personal meditation on the spiritual effect of political instability on the Palestinian psyche and identity. As such, it is an invaluable contribution to the struggle for peace in the region. Elia Suleiman lived in New York from 1982 until 1993 where he directed two short films, Introduction to the End of an Argument (co-directed by Jayce Salloum) and Homage by Assassination. In 1994, Suleiman moved to Jerusalem and was Visiting Scholar at Bir Zeit University. For the past several years he has commuted between New York, Paris and Nazareth.