Palestinian filmmaker-artist blends mythology and folklore at Ilham Gallery in KL

Noor Abed's new film installation 'A Night We Held Between' (2024) will be shown at Ilham Gallery in KL from Nov 10-21. Photo: Handout

Palestinian artist and filmmaker Noor Abed will showcase her new film installation, A Night We Held Between (2024), at Ilham Gallery in KL from Nov 10-21.

The 30-minute work, which will be on view at the gallery's Level 3 space, centres on Song For The Fighters, a piece from Palestine's Popular Art Center archive.

Shot across ancient Palestinian sites – caves, underground passages, and wild valleys – it brings history to life as a shared, timeless experience. Blending rituals and narratives of community and resistance, the film highlights collective movement and shared emotions as vital forces in sustaining Palestinian social life and identity.

In conjunction with the screening, the 36-year old artist will be participating in a public programme (registration required, email [e-mail]) at Ilham Gallery on Nov 9 (2pm – 5pm).

The Amsterdam-based Noor will be in conversation with writer-director Jo Kukathas about her film practice and its relationship to mythology, landscape, history and the archive.The conversation will follow a special screening of Noor’s trilogy of films Penelope (2014), our songs were ready for all wars to come (2021), and A Night We Held Between (2024).

Made over the course of 10 years, the three films combine mythology and folklore to imagine new possibilities for the representation and enactment of social formations in Palestine.

Together the films can be seen as a historical document from an unknown archive, retrieving a collective memory while connecting us to an imaginary yet to unfold. Working with folk tales, folk songs, and the choreographing of daily movement; the films reclaim an interrupted proximity to the land, to lost rituals, and to the invisible knowledge embedded in the peripheral.

Noor gained her BFA at the arts academy in Ramallah, Palestine and her MFA from CalArts in California.

A Night We Held Between is a free admission exhibition at Ilham Gallery.