JUMANA ISSA


Portfolio
& 
Archive



ARCHIVE (selected work)

خريطة (in development) (2026)
(documentary)
Bl0wn (2024)
(commissioned)
Pride and Prejudice (2023)
(commissioned)
Cashflow (2023)
(short)

Klang Moor Schopfe (2022)
(commissioned)
Es muss (It must) (2021)
(short)
Dried Out, We Had Forgotten Our Speech (2021) 
(short)
Sadaf H. Nava (2021)
(commissioned)
Haus Gawaling (2021)
(commissioned)
Unless (2021)
(cinematography)
    Email
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    Jumana Issa is a Palestinian/Swiss Director & Cinematographer based in Zurich, Switzerland. In her work, she explores various forms of resistance, power dynamics or intergenerational traumas. In her practice, she embraces the idea of the archive as a liberating tool and utilises the oral history method. 

    Jumana studied Film at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and completed her bachelor's degree in 2021 with a focus on screenwriting. 

    Her graduation film Es muss (It must) (co-directed by Flavio Luca Marano) won the ZHdK Förderpreis (sponsorship award) for the best graduation film of the year. Es muss (It must) celebrated its world premiere at the 74th Locarno Film Festival were they won the "Best Swiss Newcomer Award". Es muss (It must) was shown at other renowned festivals worldwide: including Clermont-Ferrand, Brussel, Dresden, Brest or at Show Me Shorts in New Zealand. 

    In 2022 Jumana Isabella Issa and Flavio Luca Marano founded their production company Sinn sieht sich Filmproduktion GmbH. She works there as a producer and director. She lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland.


    NEW PROJECTS

    Auf eigene Faust (42 min)
    2025  (in development)
    produced by Sinn sieht sich Filmproduktion

    خريطة  Documentary (70 min)
    2026 (in development)
    produced by Sinn sieht sich Filmproduktion


    FILMOGRAPHY

    2023 – Cashflow, Experimental, 3 min

    2021 – Es muss (It must), Fiction, 18.5 min

    2021 – Dried Out, We Had Forgotten
    Our Speech, Fiction, 8 min

    2018 – Martha, Fiction, 10 min


    AWARDS:

    2021     – Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland), 
    Best Swiss Newcomer Award
    Pardi di domani - Concorso nazionale (Winner) 
    for Es muss (It must)

    2022 – Beirut International Women Film Festival (Lebanon) – Winner Best Short for Es muss 
    (It must)

    2023 – Arctic Film Festival (Norway) – Winner Best Short for Es muss (It must)


    RESIDENCIES:

    2023     – Locarno Spring Academy (Mentor:
    Radu Jude)







      خريطة
      (in development)
      documentary

      (2026)

      Part of the colonial strategy is to erase, to uproot the indigenous people, is to erase their memory and their roots, their cultural and national identity. The conservation of oral history and audiovisual testimony to this history is a way to fight against this colonial warfare. Kharita is a poem, a testament of resistance and simply a document of the Palestinian existence. 

      snipped





        Bl0wn by Perrrformat
        Josephine Baan & Luc Häfliger
        An edited documentation of the approx. 3 hour performance

        (2024)

        "Bl0Wn considers how becoming unrecognisable might offer the possibility of liberation from identitarian markers. By harnessing unrecognizability, illegibility, and incoherence as strategies to question and potentially abolish the constraints one is borne into, the piece aims to interrogate and negotiate the limits of our given realities. Choosing what to reveal and what to hide; through light and darkness, sound and noise, forms and textures, as well as performativity and the refusal to perform. Bl0Wn invites the unruliness of the body as a space for change."

        watch here





          Pride and Prejudice by Ivan Cheng
          (cinematography)

          (2023)

          4K video, 27'21 mins
          for Unschöne Museen
          gta Exhibitions, Zurich
          curated by Fredi Fischli, Niels Olsen and Geraldine Tedder

          more





            Cashflow
            (short)

            (2023)

            Part of “Find a Film!” by Omnibusfilms
            Premiered at the 76th Locarno Film Festival (Special Screening

            The cash must flow, they say. Switzerland's second largest bank went bankrupt at the beginning of 2023, resulting in a forced merger with Switzerland's largest bank. Amounts of billions are being guaranteed by the state. There are many numbers and many zeros. What is the price for all the cash that flows?

            trailer





              Klang Moor Schopfe
              (commisioned)

              (2022)

              SITE VISIT III
              directed, filmed and edited by Jumana Issa
              music by Simeon Sigg

              watch here





                Es muss / It must
                (short)
                written, directed and edited by Jumana Issa & Flavio Luca Marano

                (2021)

                In a single humiliating day, Silvia is fired from her job despite being a few years away from retirement, a policeman fines her during a traffic check, and the director of the church choir takes away her solo part. During the Ave Maria rehearsal, Silvia decides to endure in an act of silent resistance.

                FESTIVALS / SCREENINGS (a selection)



                AWARDS (a selection)

                  2021 – Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland),  Best Swiss Newcomer Award
                  Pardi di domani - Concorso nazionale (Winner) for Es muss (It must)

                  2022 – Beirut International Women Film Festival (Lebanon) – Winner Best Short for Es muss 
                  (It must)

                  2023 – Arctic Film Festival (Norway) – Winner Best Short for Es muss (It must)


                trailer





                  Dried Out, We Had Forgotten Our Speech
                  (short)
                  written, directed and edited by Jumana Issa & Tina Reden

                  (2021)

                  A group walking together towards an alternative future, hoping to find new ways of being and belonging. It is an act of liberation, of collective empowerment and moment of gentle refusal. Inspired by Audre Lorde’s notion of a poetic revolutionary they are looking for "something outside of those walls, that so far had limited their ability to feel each other, touch and sense each other.


                    trailer





                      SADAF H. NAVA: Fabula’s Score at Luma Westbau
                      (commisioned)
                      Filmed & edited by Jumana Issa

                      (2021)

                      Fabula’s Score is the first institutional exhibition showing the entire scope of Sadaf H Nava’s practice as a visual artist, musician and performer. Aimed at animating the different elements of her practice as a total work of art, the exhibition has the promise of a fable.

                      Like in a fabulous story in which objects come to life and speak, Nava treats her scores and musical notes as protagonists. By building a narrative around the visual markers of music making – such as a stage, a microphone, musical notes – these components are inserted into an expanded "score" and transformed into a fable. The dense, spatial accrochage, recalling a stage-set-like environment, includes paintings, displays, stages, drawings, videos, projections, sculpture and live performance.


                      This exhibition is part of a program curated by Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen for schwarzescafé, Luma Westbau.


                        watch here
                        © Jumana Issa 2025Archive (2021-present)