Film screening and conversation

Unfolding as a personal meditation from the Jewish diaspora, The Village Under The Forest explores the hidden remains of the destroyed Palestinian village of Lubya, which lies under a purposefully cultivated forest plantation called South Africa Forest.

Using the forest and the village ruins as metaphors, the documentary explores themes related to the erasure of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) and the persistence of memory.

Through a multi-layered visual, aural and narrative assemblage, the film asks that we imagine a shared future as an ethical obligation in which dignity, acknowledgement, return and co-habitation may be possible in Israel/Palestine.

The Village Under the Forest, a film by Mark J. Kaplan and Heidi Grunebaum won the Encounters International Documentary Film Festival audience award for best South African documentary of 2013.