Former Fellow

Ra’anan Alexandrowicz

Duration of stay: 29 January – 20 February 2025

In cooperation with Prof. Dr. Vinzenz Hediger

Funded by University of Pennsylvania Center for Experimental Ethnography and ConTrust

Ra’anan Alexandrowicz is an Israeli filmmaker and writer now living in Philadelphia, PA. His award-winning work seeks to make the invisible visible and challenge political and formal conventions. Ra’anan’s most recent film is The Viewing Booth, an in-depth study of how a young pro-Israeli American viewer sees images of abuse of Palestinian rights, which premiered at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival. He is best known for The Law in These Parts (2011), which exposes the existence of a parallel legal system in Israel that applies only to Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation, and which received the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and a Peabody Award. His earlier documentaries, The Inner Tour (2001), which follows a group of Palestinians on a bus tour through the state of Israel, and Martin (1999), which tells the controversial story of a Dachau concentration camp survivor, were shown at the Berlin Film Festival and in MoMA’s New Directors/New Films. Alexandrowicz’s sole fiction feature, James’ Journey to Jerusalem (2003), a dark comedy about a devout young African man who attempts a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, premiered in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight and at the Toronto Film Festival, and received several international awards.

Research project: 1 Land 2 Cinemas

In 1896 two unrelated events happened. In Vienna Theodore Herzel published the essay Der Judenstaat. In Paris, the Lumiere Brothers released their invention the Cinematograph. Since then, the history of the Israeli Palestinian conflict has been entangled with the history of cinema. From the emergence of early Zionist cinema, through the first decades of Israeli cinema, continuing with the film units of the Palestine Liberation organization and all the way to the unchecked release of images from the current war- over the last century two separate cinematic traditions developed in Palestine/Israel. Sometimes negating and sometimes complimenting each other, Israeli and Palestinian cinemas make up a unique case in which there are two separate cinemas for one land. The 1L2C research team, will explore cinematic objects[1] and historical facts, deconstruct and evaluate narratives and myths that enable it. The team will study and scrutinize the two cinema histories, follow the parallels and reflections and ask ourselves, if cinema is a reflection of the painful reality of the conflict or one of the drivers of it?


[1] The term Cinema is used here in an expansive way. Cinematic objects include type of moving image in any form and mode of viewership. From features and documentary films, through news, old “Super 8” home movies, all the way to YouTube and TikTok videos. Short, long, viral or buried in archives and never yet seen all are part of the medium for the purpose of this research.

Events

The Record and the Narrative. The Documentary Cinema of Ra’anan Alexandrowicz

Tuesday, February 11, 2025, 8 p.m.
The Law in These Parts

Wednesday, February 12, 2025, 4 p.m.
The Inner Tour

Wednesday, February, 12, 2025, 6:15 p.m.
The Viewing Booth

  • Publikationen

    The Viewing Booth (2020), The Law in These Parts (2012), James‘ Journey to Jerusalem (2004), The Inner Tour (2000)

News from the research center

Event
14.07.2025 | Frankfurt

Utopie und Aufbruch der 1968er – Was von politischer Rebellion und individueller Selbstbefreiung geblieben ist

Panel Discussion

Die Diskussionsrunde mit Rainer Langhans, Christa Ritter, die seit 1978 zur Selbsterfahrungsgruppe um Langhans gehört, und dem Sozialphilosophen Martin Saar widmet sich utopischen Vorstellungen, die von der 1968er Bewegung ausgingen, und beleuchtet deren Ideale, Impulse, individuelle und gesellschaftspolitische Nachwirkungen.

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Event
10.07.2025 | Frankfurt am Main

Territorial Justice by Lea Ypi

Workshop

Workshop on the new book by Lea Ypi (LSE). With, among others: Andrea Sangiovanni and Ayelet Shachar.

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Event
01.07.2025 | Brussels

Europa in einer multipolaren Welt – Wie kann die EU den Herausforderungen gegenüber Großmächten begegnen?

Crisis Talk

Impuls von Prof. Dr. Nicole Deitelhoff mit anschließender Podiumsdiskussion

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News
22.05.2025

Does deliberative democracy have a future in the age of oligarchs, autocrats and patriarchs?

On June 3, Prof. Simone Chambers will give a lecture on the value of democracies and the future of the form of government.

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News
19.05.2025

What can a baroque tapestry tell us about colonial iconography?

Lecture by Cécile Fromone on May 21. The professor at the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University, director of the Cooper Gallery at the Hutchins Center and author will talk about the long-forgotten African origins of iconography and its colonial dimension.

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News
05.05.2025

Normative Orders Newsletter 01/25 published

The newsletter from Research Centre Normative Orders collects information on current events, reports, news and publications several times a year. Read the first issue 2025 here.

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News
05.05.2025

"Hitler. History of a Dictator" by Sybille Steinbacher will be published on May 15, 2025

The historian's new book deals with Hitler's origins, the roots of his anti-Semitism and his rise to power.

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News
29.04.2025

Public lecture series “Racism in the police” begins on May 13, 2025

Racism in the police has various dimensions. In the lecture series “Racism in the police - empirical findings, methodological approaches and controversies”, three empirical studies on police work will be presented.

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