Al-tariq illa Filastin (The Road to Palestine) (1985)
Filed under: Animation, 1980s, animated documentary, Color, Cutout, Documentary, East Germany, Layaly Badr, Palestine, Palestine Liberation Organization, Stop Motion,
Al-tariq illa Filastin (The Road to Palestine)
Directed by:Layaly Badr
Producers:Palestine Liberation Organization
Animated by:Layaly Badr
Layouts by:Kids from East Germany and Palestine
Release date:31/12/1985
Running time:7:24
Color process:Traditional
Synopsis
This short documentary-style animation by Layaly Badr tells the story of Layla, a young Palestinian refugee who has been injured in an air raid. Layla and her friends use their imaginations to describe their home country of Palestine to each other, despite having never seen it (“AoP”). A joint production between the Palestine Cinema Institute and the GDR (East Germany) (El-Hassan, 123), Badr’s documentary offers an account of war and ethnic-cleansing through the perspective of childhood innocence.
Layla, having lived her entire life in a refugee camp, longs to return home. Her circumstances are a bleak reminder of the Nakba, the violent displacement and ethnic-cleansing of Palestinians beginning in 1948 (Moushabeck, 828). The film was in post-production in 1982 (El-Hassan, 123), which coincided with the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Beirut, where Israeli-proxy military forces brutally killed up to 3,500 Palestinian refugees (IMEU). The Palestine Cinema Institute was pillaged and destroyed during the siege, which left Layaly unable to deposit the film for some time (El-Hassan, 145–146).
As Palestinians experience war crimes, the collective drive for liberation becomes a choice between a free life or struggle. It is sustained by the hopes and dreams of children like Layla, who continue to remain strong and have courage despite their circumstances.
References:
“ARCHIVES OF POWER: The Palestinian Film Archive and the Erasure of History (abbr. AoP).” Eventive, https://watch.eventive.org/artearchive/play/65d77c9459bb79004f3a2a55/65d77b6821843e0088fa47f9. Accessed 22 August 2025.
El-Hassan, Azza. “Film Restoration of Remains. In: The Afterlife of Palestinian Images.” Palgrave Studies in Arab Cinema, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-66951-4_9.
El-Hassan, Azza. “Working with Visual Remains.” World Records Journal, vol 8, pp. 145–153, https://worldrecordsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/WR-08-13.pdf.
“Explainer: The Sabra & Shatila Massacre.” IMEU – Institute for Middle East Understanding, 10 September 2024, https://imeu.org/article/the-sabra-shatila-massacre.
Moushabeck, Michel. “What Is Nakba Day?” The Massachusetts Review, vol 60, no. 4, 2019, pp. 827–30, https://doi.org/10.1353/mar.2019.0130.