Jaffa – followthethings.com

“Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork“
A documentary film dirercted by Eyal Sivan for Trabelsi Productions.
Trailer embedded above, search online for streaming options here.

Imagine visiting your local supermarket and popping a bag of Jaffa branded oranges in your basket. Then imagine browsing your favourite news site on your phone in the checkout queue and reading the latest story about deaths in Gaza, war in the Middle East. Maybe you’ve read a lot about this conflict, or have some first hand experience. And maybe you don’t understand why it’s happening, how it all started. That bag of oranges – and this documentary film – could help you. Jaffa is an ancient Palestinian city. It’s also where Jaffa oranges have been grown by Arab andJewish labourers since the 1800s. They would wrap each individual fruit in tissue paper, pack them in wooden boxes. load them onto boats and ship them wordwide. A year after the birth of ‘practical photography’ in 1839, Palestinian photographer Khalil Khaed visited Jaffa to document everyday life and work, including the work being done by Arab and Jewish people in its plentiful orange groves. Photography, film, art work and advertising has documented the connection between Jaffa and oranges ever since. But, this film argues, as the Israeli state began to take shape in the 20th Century, there was a concerted attempt to remove Palestinians from this Jaffa orange story and to rebrand them emblems of Israeli civilisation. The story of the Jaffa orange is ‘Settler Colonialism 101.’ To piece this together, Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan spends five years searching through the archives for Jaffa-orange photographs, films, advertising and resistance in the region. He then shows what he’s found to Israeli and Palestinian people- academics, poets, retired orange workers, advertising executives, others – and films their reactions. What he creates from these screenings is a profoundly insightful and moving documentary. In response to Sivan’s anti-Zionist politics, his films have struggled to get funding and screenings in Israel and have generated criticisms of anti-semitism. But, the film has generated considerable critical and public acclaim from its audiences around the world. First screened in 2009, it has become a go-to documentary to spark debate about the Palestine-Israel conflict today. And Sivan continues to attend screenings to answer questions about the film and the futures that might be possible in the region. The main argument in Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork is that, if Arab and Jewish people could work together harmoniously in the past – like they did historically in Jaffa’s orange groves – they can do so in the future. Watch the film, read the comments below, and see what you think.

Page reference: Lucian Harford (2025) Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork. followthethings.com/jaffa-the-oranges-clockwork.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 67 minutes.