Restored Pictures

The filmmaker travels between Bethlehem, Haifa and Nazareth to explore the life of Karimeh Abbud, the first female photographer in pre-1948 Palestine. Born in Bethlehem in 1893, Karimeh rose to prominence in a male-dominated profession after receiving her first camera as a teenager. Her photographs remain vital records of life in Palestine in the early 1900s.

Mahasen Nasser-Eldin: ‘Working on Restored Pictures opened up a space for me to engage with the writing of history through image and sound, against the “grain” of the archive and the condition of denial and erasure. In Restored Pictures I reclaim the denied legacy of Karimeh Abbud within her pre-Nakba Palestinian context. The Al-Karmel newspaper record advertising her Haifa studio, and her self-description as the “only national photographer in the country”, guide my speculation and imagination. In my search, I follow a period of renaissance and political struggle in pre-Nakba Palestine, engaging with present social and political contextualisation through archival practice and film.’