SYNOPSIS
While the Israeli army retaliates against the Second Intifada in the West Bank in the early 2000s, a mother films her family's daily life, punctuated by time spent shielding her family from harm in the basement. Now, her son revisits this past, delivering a heart-breaking portrait of the anguish of parents who are forced to choose between their children’s physical safety and the emotional upheaval of leaving home.
REVIEW
What does it mean to live in Palestine, where airstrikes are routine, humanitarian crises are commonplace, and fear and sorrow have become ingrained habits? If you seek an answer to this question, Three Promises is essential viewing. Begun in 2000 amidst Israel's retaliatory actions against the Palestinian resistance movement during the Second Intifada, this film was completed over more than two decades. It goes beyond documenting historical events to explore and understand the trauma passed down through generations. Director Yousef Srouji, who describes himself as having "accidentally become a filmmaker," discovered a vast collection of home videos from his childhood after reaching adulthood. The primary recorder was his mother, who never put down the camera, capturing not only peaceful everyday moments but also the terrifying times when the family had to flee to the basement during air raids. These recordings reveal not only the fear felt by the family, including the young director, but also a profound, tragic beauty in their ability to support each other and maintain hope in the face of extreme circumstances. Srouji skillfully weaves these recordings together with thoughtful conversations with his mother to reconstruct his childhood memories. The result is a story that transcends the personal and familial, offering a universal testament to human fragility, resilience, and the power of memory and documentation as acts of defiance against a brutal and despairing era.
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
Memories of the time before we left Palestine have stayed with me long after we moved away. A time we never discussed as a family, banishing it to the unmentionable caves that had transformed us from one family unit into four separate individuals. It wasn’t until the winter of 2017 that I discovered my mother’s archive of home footage that trespassed into a taboo time of war and chaos that ripped us from our home. This film is my way of processing this time together.
CONTACT
Marielle OLENTINE
Marielle.olentine@gmail.com
