When Cinema Became an Act of Resistance
Mohammed Bakri, the Palestinian actor and filmmaker whose work bridged art and unapologetic political commitment, has died at 72. A lone voice in Middle Eastern cinema, Bakri spent his life imploring film to bear witness, and it could and should. He died on Wednesday at Galilee Medical Centre in northern Israel, his family said, adding that the death was from complications associated with heart and lung issues.
Bakri, who was born in 1953 in the Galilee to a Muslim family, was an Israeli citizen who straddled — and frequently flouted — the contradictions of identity, citizenship, and conscience. No fan of other people with Israeli privilege, Sayed had been trained in the theatre and quickly became one of its most dominant screen presences; he received glowing reviews from some quarters of Israeli cinema for refusing to tone down his dedication to the Palestinian cause.
That duality defined his career. He became a familiar face in large international productions and worked with world-renowned auteurs, such as Costa-Gavras and the Italian masters Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani. It was his breakthrough role as a Palestinian prisoner in the 1980 drama Beyond the Walls that brought him critical praise at home and abroad and demonstrated that he had the talent to humanise lives that were usually reduced to headlines.
But Bakri’s international fame — and infamy — came with his 2002 documentary Jenin, Jenin. Shot in the wake of Israel’s military attack on the Jenin refugee camp, the piece collected testimony from Palestinian residents and accused Israeli forces of war crimes. To supporters, the film was an urgent act of bearing witness; to critics, it went too far. Two years later, in 2022, the Israeli Supreme Court imposed a ban on the documentary, citing defamation—a decision that only bolstered Bakri’s reputation as an unflinchingly principled artist.
In addition to that landmark movie, Bakri made several socially aware documentaries about the lives of Israeli Arabs over the years, frequently returning to questions of dignity, memory and the moral obligations of film. A father of six, he often spoke about filmmaking as less of a career to choose than a duty.
Tributes flowed in after news of his death. Arab Israeli broadcaster A-Shams ran wrote a headline, “Another free voice,” noting that when Bakri entered into acting, he viewed art as “a means of inspiring and bridging the gap.” His legacy, the station reported, is a testament to the idea that creativity can itself be an act of resistance.
The outpouring proved that Mohammed Bakri left behind a body of work that refuses to be silenced. In a place of fierce contestation over narratives, he elected to listen, record and confront — believing, until the end, that cinema had the power to tell uncomfortable truths still.