Wael Zuaiter was the first victim in Europe in a series of assassinations of Palestinian artists, intellectuals and diplomats perpetrated by Israel...

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7098.shtml

"Material for a film": Retracing Wael Zuaiter (Part 1)
Emily Jacir, The Electronic Intifada, 16 July 2007

Detail of Emily Jacir's mixed media installation (in this shot a photograph of Wael Zuaiter) currently featured at the 2007 La Biennale di Venezia.

Wael Zuaiter was the first victim in Europe in a series of assassinations of Palestinian artists, intellectuals and diplomats perpetrated by Israeli agents that was already underway in the Middle East. Zuaiter was gunned down by 12 bullets outside his apartment in Piazza Annibaliano, Rome on 16 October 1972.

In 1979, Zuaiter's companion of eight years, Sydney-born artist Janet Venn-Brown published For a Palestinian: A Memorial to Wael Zuaiter. One chapter, titled "Material for a film" by Elio Petri and Ugo Pirro, is comprised of a series of interviews conducted with the people who were part of Zuaiter's life in Italy, including Venn-Brown herself. They were going to make a film, but Petri died shortly afterwards and the film was never realized. This chapter was the point of departure for my project.

I went back to Rome in 2005 to continue collecting material for a film.

I visited his friends in Rome, Massa Carrara and elsewhere and I made several trips to Nablus to visit his sister Naila and see his family home where he grew up. I visited Venn-Brown in Rome regularly during these three years. We spent many weeks together, calling on Zuaiter's old friends and going through her extensive archives. I found a letter Venn-Brown had written to filmmaker Costas Gavras asking him to consider making a film about Zuaiter because she believed that through his story, that of thousands of other Palestinians could be told.

Zuaiter's friends during his ten years in Rome included a myriad of cultural leaders, artists, journalists and poets, including Alberto Moravia (with whom he traveled twice to the Middle East), Raphael Alberti, Antonio Gambini, Bruno Cagli, Jean Genet, Ennio Politi, Piero Della Seta, and Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Venn-Brown told me, "He was a poet. He was completely lost without poetry."

The following are two videos and texts which are part of the ongoing work "Material for a film" currently being shown in Venice:

WAEL ZUAITER IN PETER SELLER'S PINK PANTHER...[more]