Videotracts for Palestine : Images et contre-images

Abstract

This article examines the political and aesthetic gesture of Videotracts for Palestine, a collective founded on Instagram in November 2023 in the context of the Israeli offensive in Gaza. Heirs to the ciné-tracts of 1968 and, more broadly, to international militant cinema, these very short anonymous films also mobilize contemporary digital tools and produce what might be called a counter-visuality of resistance. The study highlights how the collective situates itself within a tradition of images as weapons of struggle while inventing its own forms, shaped by the massive circulation enabled by the Internet and social media. The videotracts deconstruct hegemonic representations while reinserting fragments of Palestinian reality that are absent from the dominant media space. Editing plays a central role: it becomes a heuristic gesture of relational thinking, a mode of affective engagement (pathos, attraction), and a possible vector of action and ethics. These films are defined by a heterogeneous aesthetic—ranging from biting irony to poetic expression, rage, and oniricism—but converge toward a single aim: to make images where only closed visuals circulate, thus opening a space of visibility, recognition, and struggle.