May of the Covenant

MAY OF THE COVENANT chronicles the first mass Palestinian uprising after the Nakba within the 1948 borders, which took place in the city of Nazareth in May 1958. Despite its central importance and being a pivotal moment in the history of Palestinians in Israel, this uprising has remained erased from official Palestinian narratives, inadequately documented and rarely discussed in depth. Through interviews with ten Palestinian individuals who actively participated in the protest—today aged between 87 and 96 years—the film reconstructs the events of that moment when Palestinians in Israel took to the streets after ten years of enforced silence under Israeli military rule. This uprising marked the first large-scale act of defiance and symbolized a public rupture of fear, setting the stage for a newly emerging collective political consciousness. The film weaves together these living testimonies with rare archival material—including documents, photographs, and media sources—to bridge past and present, and to shed light on a forgotten moment that signaled a turning point in the political trajectory of Palestinians inside Israel.