Jaffa, the Orange’s Clockwork | Eyal Sivan

Jaffa, the orange’s clockwork narrates the visual history of the famous citrus fruit originated from Palestine and known worldwide for centuries as “Jaffa oranges”.

The history of the orange is the history of this land. Through photography and cinema, poetry, paintings, workers of the citruses’ industry and historians, memory and present mythologies, Palestinians and Israelis cross and combine. The close reading of the Jaffa brand’s visual representation is a reflection on western orientalist phantasms surrounding the ‘holy land’ and the ‘State of Israel’ and a tool to reveal the untold story of what was once a commune industry and symbol to Arabs and Jews in Palestine.

Jaffa, the orange’s clockwork is a political essay unfolding the story of the invention and the visual history of the world’s wide famous citrus fruit originated in Palestine and known around the world as “Jaffa oranges”. While the orange become the symbol of the Zionist enterprise and of the state of Israel, for Palestinians it symbolizes the lost of their homeland and its destruction.

Through a careful reading of the visual representation of the brand, the film reflects on western phantasms related to the ‘Orient’ the ‘holy land’ and the State of Israel and unveils the untold story of what was ones a commune symbol and industry to Arabs and Jews in Palestine.

The oranges of Jaffa, the fruits, the orchards, the brand name and the city – that gave to the fruit its name, is the backdrop of the commune Jewish-Arab life in Palestine before the establishment of Israel, the colonial covetousness, the account of obliteration, nationalization, then repudiation in order to propose a joint historical narrative, and a brand of hope for the future