Written in 1978, Fertile Memory is the first film to have been filmed by a Palestinian director inside the borders of Israel before 1967. Neither documentary nor fiction, Fertile Memory recounts the lives of two very different Palestinian women: Farah Hatoum, a widow living with her children and grandchildren, and Sahar Khalifeh, a novelist from the West Bank.

Michel Khleifi carefully observes the two women in their daily lives and highlights their very different personalities. Their divergent opinions and lives play an important role in underlining their common status as Palestinians under Israeli rule, and as women in a male-dominated society. Yet, despite these contrasts, the mother and the intellectual share the same fight for freedom and dignity.

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