r/Documentaries • u/stammerton • 5h ago
History Aftermath (1967) - UNRWA documentary filmed in Jordan following the Six-Day War, documenting the displacement of Palestinians and the refugee camps established after the 1967 exodus [00:28:00]
Aftermath is a 1967 UNRWA documentary directed and reported by Palestinian filmmaker Samir Hissen, documenting the humanitarian consequences of the Six-Day War and the displacement of Palestinians into Jordan.
Filmed in black and white on 16mm, it records the emergency camps established for people displaced by the war, including the shortages of tents and other basic facilities taced as retugees arrived. The film places the events within the longer Palestinian refugee crisis, coming less than twenty years after the mass displacement of 1948.
The documentary is also interesting as a historical artefact in its own right. Although directed by Hissen, it was written and produced by Myrtle Winter of UNRWA's Department of Public Information. The Palestine Film Institute notes that, like many humanitarian films of this period, Palestinians are largely presented through the institutional perspective of the relief agency rather than being allowed to narrate their own experiences.
Seen almost sixty years later, Aftermath provides contemporary footage of what Palestinians call the Naksa, the displacement associated with the 1967 war, rather than a later reconstruction of those events.