Artist and filmmaker Jumana Manna's film A Magical Substance Flows Into Me follows in the footsteps of ethnomusicologist Jewish-German Dr. Robert Lachmann, who emigrated to 1930s Palestine. There, he created a radio program for the Palestine Broadcasting Service where, each week, he invited local communities to perform their vernacular music. Manna retreads this ground in modern times – speaking with and listening to the songs of Kurdish, Moroccan, and Yemenite Jews; Samaritans; members of Palestinian communities; Bedouins; and Coptic Christians – to offer a document of vanishing music cultures in the region, while also dispelling one-dimensional ideas that position Palestinian culture solely in relation to its struggles against Israel.

Arabic, Hebrew and English spoken, English subtitles

(Jumana Manna, 66 min, 2016)