Palestinian artist Noor Abed's film our songs were ready for all the wars to come (2021) enters this space of disappearance through a poetic exploration of memory, folklore and collective mourning.
The film consists of choreographed scenes based on documented Palestinian folktales and revolves around water wells and their connection to communal rituals. Abed approaches folklore as a living form of knowledge, one that can become a collective and potentially emancipatory tool through which dominant narratives can be challenged. The film's only narration is a song performed by Palestinian singer Maya Khaldi, whose lyrics form a collage of folk tales. Her voice moves through the film like a thread connecting fragments of memory, its looping reverberation echoing the cyclical nature of history. The song feels at once ancient and premonitory: an intention set in the past that seems to speak directly to the present.