No matters what Win Wenders said, when so many director and producers stabd on the opposite side , Art is political. It is a position you take. Even if you make a film about flowers or butterflies.

An interview with Palestinian-Syrian director Abdallah Al-Khatib about his film "Chronicles from the Siege," showcased in Perspectives, which narrates the story of the Yarmouk refugee camp. The film transitions from documentary to fiction, exploring cinema amidst ruins and independence.

However, this is not the main issue, and we are well aware of it, just as we have long known that the genocide in Gaza is a subject the Berlinale prefers to avoid addressing explicitly. This is not unique to this festival, but for an event that claims to be "political" and has openly supported the conflict in Ukraine or Iranian artists against the Islamic Republic regime, this silence is more noticeable. It becomes paradoxical, especially since, before the festival began, many highlighted Tuttle's efforts to "regain the trust of Arab filmmakers," who had distanced themselves from the Berlinale for this very reason.

A Yarmouk video store owner is starving, always returning empty-handed from the bread line; some boys search for wood to warm themselves and enter the store, finding their memories. Posters on the wall feature Truffaut and American classics, and the videos are now used for kindling as gunfire echoes outside. A couple meets secretly, with one seemingly oblivious to the situation. A pregnant woman is injured in an attack. Everywhere, people are dying, aid is sporadic, hospitals lack everything, and it's a battle to save those who arrive. Bodies are bent and strained in desperate hunger, carrying countless wounds. This is what Alkhatib experienced in Syria, and it mirrors what continues to happen today in Gaza, under the guise of Trump's "peace." When we meet him, he seems content; the public screening was beautiful, "I felt a good reaction," he says.

In "Little Palestine" (2021), he documented life in the Palestinian camp of Yarmouk besieged by jihadist militants and Assad's army in diary form. Much of this material resurfaces in "Chronicles From the Siege," where he employs fiction to explore a more abstract notion of "siege." This brings to mind Gaza, blockaded by the Israeli army.

The events in this film are entirely real; I listened to and gathered them while filming Little Palestine, but I was unsure how to capture them. It seemed both impossible and inappropriate to present them through a documentary lens; I felt a distance was needed, which only fiction could provide. Revisiting the topic of the siege was crucial for me because it is a reality wherever there is a Palestinian community; it's part of our history, in Gaza as in Beirut, in Sabra and Shatila, in Syria, in Jenin… All of Palestine remains besieged, and it was vital for me to clarify this point. Some directors focus on the present, others on the future; I now choose to concentrate on the historical past of the Palestinian people, which embodies elements of both. The siege of Yarmouk occurred in 2014; I made the film in 2021. Cinema should not follow the audience but affirm our vision. It is evident that the genocide in Gaza permeates the images, and how could it be otherwise? As Palestinian artists, we must not and cannot detach from our reality. I conceived this film before the genocide in Palestine because the experiences of years of war could not be encapsulated in a single work. The recent images of the Gaza siege have revived memories of Yarmouk and reignited the urgency to continue the narrative. Chronicles from the Siege emerged from this necessity: to perpetuate the story, to convey not only what the eyes have seen but what cannot be silenced. Achieving this was arduous. I refused to be influenced by the budget and accept requests for changes, and so on. For me, working independently is crucial; it's true, as I've been told many times, that my films aren't for everyone but for those who have the patience to follow me. It's a choice; I want to be free, and here, conveying the feeling of living under siege was the foundation of the film. From Europe, I received nothing, no funding; all support came from Arab production funds.

There is extensive archival material that also represents the external world of the characters.

This is my archive; these are the images I captured in Yarmouk. I stumbled into cinema when a camera came into my hands in the camp during the siege, just as shown in the film; it belonged to a friend who was killed. I became a powerless witness; editing was an act of survival and memory, not an aesthetic pursuit, but a cry through images against the world's indifference. My background as a director is in documentary, and I wanted to maintain this reference. Additionally, due to budget constraints, it wouldn't have been possible to shoot exteriors like this, with rubble, crowd scenes, and so forth.

There is a character, a boy filming these images, who seems almost autobiographical.

It is; as I mentioned, I picked up the camera by chance and started filming. The act of someone "documenting" is a nod to reality and simultaneously to a story that continues for the Palestinians. The archive here is used cinematically, with shots that must protect the dignity of the people. It is a memory that speaks beyond its time.