Palestinian artist Jumana Manna travels through Israel and the Palestinian territories in the footsteps of Robert Lachmann, a German-Jewish ethnomusicologist who traveled to Palestine in the 1930s and explored the diverse musical traditions there. Inspired by Lachmann’s musicological studies, Manna revisits the musical traditions and their modern bearers. What do these songs sound like now when performed by Moroccan, Kurdish, or Yemenite Jews, by Samaritans, members of the urban and rural Palestinian communities, Bedouins and Coptic Christians? When a true fascination for history meets the sounds of the rababa, saz, oud and tin cans, a cultural diversity emerges that subverts the distinction between "Arab" and "Jewish". There are no national borders here, only different kitchens where people make music together.

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68min // Berlinale // 2016