Cineuropa is exclusively unveiling the trailer for Revolutionaries Never Die, the new feature-length documentary by Palestinian filmmaker and archivist Mohanad Yaqubi. The film will world-premiere in the Filmmakers of the Present section of the 79th Locarno Film Festival, running from 5 to 15 August.

In October 2018, veteran Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab approached Yaqubi with an invitation to collaborate. She died two months later, before he had answered her. Revolutionaries Never Die is his belated response: a cinematic conversation with Saab assembled from the images, words and historical traces she left behind.

Drawing on Saab’s extensive archive, the film follows her artistic and political journey through the turbulent 1970s, with particular attention paid to the Palestinian revolution, the Lebanese Civil War and the relationship between filmmaking and political struggle. Fragments of footage are arranged chronologically, while Saab’s own voice – reconstructed through material she recorded in Arabic, French and English – guides the narrative.

Yaqubi worked from a collection of 115 reels preserved by Saab and covering the period between 1973 and 1983. Structured as a letter that can never be delivered, the film considers how archives can resist disappearance, interconnect living memories and allow images from the past to intervene in a present where history appears to be repeating itself.

Yaqubi previously directed Off Frame AKA Revolution Until Victory (2016) and R21 AKA Restoring Solidarity (2022). He co-wrote Revolutionaries Never Die with Mathilde Rouxel. This Palestinian-Belgian-Qatari production comes courtesy of Idioms Film, with Sourat Films and Escautville serving as co-producers. Square Eyes are handling international sales.

Check out our exclusive trailer below: