INTERFILM 41 International Short Film Festival Berlin
4 - 9 November 2025

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FORUM 07 Case Study: How to reclaim the Colonial Film Archive with Theo Panagopoulos

A forgotten archive from the 1930s and '40s, rare colour images of flowers in British-occupied Palestine, stories of colonizers and colonized: Theo Panagopoulos shows how such images can be reconquered and retold. His film The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing discusses archival material and contemporary perspectives. Narratives are reclaimed, past and present connected and film becomes a tool for reappropriating the storyline – quiet becomes loud, as well as clever and powerful at the same time.


This event will be moderated by Rabih El-Khoury.

08.11.25, 15:00h, Unterfilm Clubkino

Case Study: How to reclaim the Colonial Film Archive with Theo Panagopoulos
Case Study: How to reclaim the Colonial Film Archive with Theo Panagopoulos

Theo Panagopoulos

Theo Panagopoulos is a Glasgow-based filmmaker, curator and doctoral researcher with a focus on film archives from 1930s Palestine. His films have won major awards at IDFA, Sundance, London Short Film Festival and Go Short, he has been selected as a European Film Academy candidate for 2026 and also has been nominated for a 2025 BAFTA award for Best British Short Film. His creative and academic work explore anti-colonial, participatory and archival methodologies around themes of collective memory, fragmented identities and displacement.

Case Study: How to reclaim the Colonial Film Archive with Theo Panagopoulos

In addition to the case study we recommend the program by Theo Panagopoulos:

WEAVING TOMORROWS FOCUS 04 They Did Not Recognise Me in the Shadows

Case Study: How to reclaim the Colonial Film Archive with Theo Panagopoulos

Moderation: Rabih El-Khoury

Rabih El-Khoury holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the Lebanese American University in Beirut and a Masters of Arts in Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship from Goldsmiths University in London. He has been working with the Metropolis Association, which manages Metropolis Art Cinema, the only art house cinema in Lebanon, since its inception in 2006. He also worked for the cultural association Beirut DC for the promotion of Arab Cinema as general coordinator for its Arab film festival The Beirut Cinema Days between 2006 and 2015. He organized over 20 Arab film weeks in the Arab World and Europe. El-Khoury served as Programme Manager of Talents Beirut between, curated the Film Prize of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, held the positions of Diversity Manager at DFF – Deutsches Filmmuseum & Filminstitut in Frankfurt am Main and Head of Program at ALFILM, the Arab Film Festival of Berlin. He curates for several years now the SAFAR Film Festival of the Arab British Center in the UK, collaborates regularly with AFRIKAMERA in Berlin and is since September 2024 Advisor for the Selection of the Official Program of the Berlinale.

1 films
The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing

The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing

Theo Panagopoulos // United Kingdom // 2024 // 17:01 min

Documentary

Palestinian wildflowers in a Scottish archive. A film about memory, violence and the power of images – silent, gentle, pensive.