Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork

Synopsis

Jaffa, the orange’s clockwork, narrates the visual history of the famous citrus fruit originated from Palestine and known worldwide for centuries as “Jaffa oranges”. The history of the orange is the history of this land. Through photography and cinema, poetry, paintings, workers of the citruses’ industry and historians, memory and present mythologies, Palestinians and Israelis cross and combine. The close reading of the Jaffa brand’s visual representation is a reflection on western orientalist phantasms surrounding the ‘holy land’ and the ‘State of Israel’, and a tool to reveal the untold story of what was once a commune industry and symbol to Arabs and Jews in Palestine.

Director Biography

Eyal Sivan is a documentary filmmaker, currently co-leading the MA program in Film, Video and New Media at the school of Humanities and Social Sciences, within the University of East London (UEL). Born in Haifa, Israel, Sivan grew up in Jerusalem and after working as a professional photographer in Tel-Aviv, he leaves and settles in Paris. Since 1985, he is sharing his time between Europe and Israel. Famous for his controversial films, Sivan directed more then 10 worldwide awarded political documentaries and produced many others.