LUX » Works » A Sketch of Manners (Alfred Roch’s Last Masquerade)

A Sketch of Manners (Alfred Roch’s Last Masquerade)

Jumana Manna

Archive, Body, Collective / Community, Desire, Documentary, Histories, Humour, Identity, Literature, Love, Music and sound, Narrative, Performance, Politics and protest, Portraits, Private / Public, Still images, Urban

2013

Country: Palestine

Duration: 12 mins

Colour,

Sound: Stereo

Ratio: 16:9

Available Format/s: HD Digital File

Original Format: HD Video

Alfred Roch, member of the Palestinian National League, is a politician with a bohemian panache. In 1942, at the height of WWII, he throws what will turn out to be the last masquerade in Palestine. Inspired by an archival photograph, ‘A Sketch of Manners (Alfred Roch’s Last Masquerade)’ recreates an unconventional bon vivant aspect of Palestinian urban life before 1948. Posing silently for a group photo, the unmasked and melancholic pierrots accidentally personify the premonition of an uncertain future.