The opening gesture in 20 Handshakes for Peace (2014) by Mahdi Fleifel sets the terms for “Reclaiming Archives”, a programme in which images—official, historical, and digital—no longer function as stable records of the past. Instead, they appear as sites of staging, distortion, and loss. The films approach archives through their gaps and distortions. Found footage is shown as incomplete and shaped by the systems that produced it.
20 Handshakes for Peace
September 13, 1993: Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Bill Clinton’s handshake on the lawn of the White House after signing the Oslo Accords. A historic moment, repeated 20 times. Tainted by countless shattered hopes and with a voice-over by intellectual Edward Said, expressing his outrage at the agreement.
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This film was part of yanco’s short film programme “Reclaiming Archives”