ṭale‘ ‘a (طاِلع عَ)[masculine] – ṭal‘a ‘a ((طالْعة عَ [feminine] – ṭal‘in ‘a (طالْعين عَ) [plural]
The Arabic word for going up is commonly used in Lebanon (and a few other neighboring Arab countries) as a way of expressing, specifically, leaving towards a destination. Mostly, to convey taking a trip from a city/village to another city/village in the country.
We are not going to resist the urge to adjoin the connotation of transcendence to the expression ṭale‘ ‘a (again, going up towards) with the upcoming film series that will be screened, as part of the Lebanon instalment of our program The Mapping Snail, at Cinemateket Trondheim.
South Lebanon has stood out, both in the country and the region, as a place of resistance against Israeli military expansionism, since more than 40 years now. As we put the last touches on this text, in February 2025, Israel is supposed to withdraw from all of the South. Has it really, while troops remain in ‘5 points’ at the borders? Is Israel ‘done’ infringing on these lands?
While going up to the South (ṭal‘in ‘al jnoub), the residents of South Lebanon have decades-long found themselves up against repetitiveinvasions (and attempts). “What are we up against?”, the people of the South ask, every decade or two.
‘Lebanese Southerners’: an unfortunate(?) discriminatory (but also counter-discriminatory) term to be used here. A (necessary?) consequent of:
While Southerners have been up against Israel since not only 1978, but even 1948 (the massacre of Houla, among many others), they have also been up against State-led abandonment, from their own country.
In October 2024, the Israeli invasion attempt of South Lebanon was operated by the most massive and savage war machine yet, enabled and funded by ‘big’ states, against the 10,452 km2 country. A failed invasion, against all odds.
The premise for the text above is inspired by artists Jayce Salloum and Walid Raad’s video/film Up to the South. With the recent Israeli assaults on Lebanon, we find ourselves at Cinemateket Trondheim going back to this singular work from 1993, borrowing its title for this chapter of screenings that deal with Israel’s incursions, Southern-based youth resistance, and copings/reflections in the aftermath of the occupation’s withdrawal from South Lebanon.
Cinemateket Trondheim is presenting 5 cinematic and video works (the videos being both cinematic and against cinema):
While Bagdadi and the Masri-Chamoun duo resort to a rather traditional approach to ‘documentaring’ South Lebanon (though one not without subversions), Salloum and Raad, in Up to the South, employ a critical treatment of the sensitivities around “terrorism, colonialism, occupation, resistance, collaboration, experts, spokespeople, leadership, the land, etc.”, disputing in their core “the history and structure of the documentary genre specifically in regards to the representation of other cultures by the West in documentary, ethnography and anthropological practice”.
