Sunday | 17 May 2026 | 10:00-11:15 AM 
@ the Lérins 1 Screening Room
Marché du Film

Amid the ongoing struggle to preserve and sustain Palestinian narrative and cinematic continuity, the Palestine Film Institute (PFI) engages international platforms such as Cannes Docs as spaces for structured connection and collaboration. Through this Showcase, four Palestinian feature documentaries in progress are presented, offering filmmakers and producers the opportunity to engage directly with decision-makers and festival programmers. PFI’s role in this Showcase is to support the conditions through which these encounters can translate into meaningful outcomes, by advancing projects, fostering partnerships, and opening pathways for long-term production and circulation.

We extend our gratitude to those who choose to engage with and support these works, and welcome partners who are committed not only to the films themselves, but to the narratives and structures that allow them to endure.

In Solidarity

PFI team

Jurors Statement

First, we would like to express our sincere thanks for this valuable support for Palestinian cinema and its filmmakers, and for the high quality and remarkable diversity of the submitted projects. The evaluation process was both challenging and rewarding.

The challenge lay in the diversity of the projects—ranging from documentary to fiction—and in their varying stages, from development to production and post-production, in addition to the complexities involved in deciding how to position certain projects for participation in different festivals.

As for the rewarding aspect, it was reflected in discovering the emerging landscape of Palestinian cinema, getting to know a promising new generation of filmmakers, and witnessing the diversity of artistic visions and approaches among directors and writers, both within Palestine and abroad, including non-Palestinian filmmakers engaging with Palestinian life through cinema.

The strong harmony among the committee members, along with the diversity of their experiences and relationships to cinema, played an important role in reaching balanced decisions. The professional and responsible discussions also helped, at times, to reconsider certain viewpoints, leading to a shared sense of satisfaction with the outcomes and with supporting projects that truly deserve development and follow-up.

In conclusion, we hope that all these projects will come to fruition and find their way onto cinema screens around the world.

As a jury, we wish each project and all participants in the call the best for a successful completion and can't wait to greet the films at their premieres in the near future.

Brigid Oshea

is a freelance documentary consultant based in Berlin, Germany. She worked for film festivals for more than 10 years, including the Berlin International Film Festival and DOK Leipzig, where she was head of the industry programme. She founded the Documentary Association of Europe in 2020, which has now grown to 800 members from more than 30 countries. Additionally, she curates programmes and helps filmmakers and producers reach their international potential through her consulting work.

Rashid Masharawi

is a pioneering Palestinian filmmaker whose work reflects the struggles of occupation and exile. His films—Curfew (1993), Haifa (1996), Ticket to Jerusalem (2002), Waiting (2005), and Laila’s Birthday (2008)—explore Passing Dreams 2024 and many other longs , shorts and documentary’s, themes of identity, displacement, and daily life in Palestine, earning international acclaim and academic recognition. Masharawi was the first to have a film selected for Cannes under the Palestinian banner.

Reem Maged

is an Egyptian cultural director, TV journalist, media instructor, and consultant

with over two decades of experience in media, cultural production, and public discourse. She is the Executive Director of Cimatheque – Alternative Film Centre in Cairo, where she has been leading since 2023 initiatives dedicated to film preservation, archival practice, and archive-based knowledge and creative production, supporting independent cinema and alternative archival work.

Selected Projects

Azziza: In a Cherished Land

Directed by: Tareq Khalaf
Produced by: Bilal Alkhatib 
Country of Production: Palestine, Lebanon
Original Title: بأرض عزيزة
Runtime: 85'
Expected Release: October 2026 
Production Stage: Post-Production 
1st Feature: Yes
Looking for: Gap Financing, Distributors, Co-Producers

Synopsis:

Worried about his safety, Azziza asks Tareq to leave Palestine to join the rest of his family in the US, leaving her and his grandmother alone in a state of war. Tareq takes sanctuary in Azziza’s land, observing her seasonal way of living while confronting the difficult decision to leave.

Director's Profile

Tareq Khalaf is a filmmaker, architect, and cultural producer based in Ramallah, Palestine. His research in urbanism focuses on the disappearance of agrarian livelihoods and rooted forms of belonging to place. Tareq has used film, socially engaged art and sculpture to address geographic fragmentation and the alienating impacts of settler colonial violence in Palestine. With experience working in both Palestine and South Africa, Tareq aims to explore settler ecologies and create new collaborative narratives across southern regions.

Producer's Profile

Bilal Alkhatib is Palestinian filmmaker working on documentary and fiction films that highlights the ordinary life of people in Palestine. Bilal started his career as a cinematographer in 2007, gradually developing his skills as a writer and director. His documentaries and short films have been screened and won international awards in Cine Palestine Paris, Carthage International Film Festival and Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival, amongst others. His documentary film project has also participated in Cannes Docs and IDFA Form, Bilal is also working on his first feature film and studying a master’s degree in cinema.

Baba

Directed by: Giacomo Fausti, Laila Sit Aboha
Produced by: Marta Melina | SMK productions (Italy)
Country of Production: Italy
Original Title: بابا
Runtime: 80'
Expected Release: September 2027
Production Stage: Production, Shooting
1st Feature: Yes
Looking for: International co-producer, sales agents, distributors for theatrical and non-theatrical release and TV pre-sales partners to strengthen the financing structure and outreach

Synopsis:

When she realizes her story is not an isolated one, Laila, a young Italian-Palestinian woman, confronts the family lunch her father never misses. Alongside a new generation shaped by exile, she navigates silences and absences until the day of a wedding: mothers sit in the front row, sons and daughters too, the fathers do not.

Co-Directors’ Profiles

Giacomo Fausti is a filmmaker from Campania. He studied Graphic Design and Art Direction at NABA in Milan, where he began exploring the relationship between cultural identity and resistance through Somos Mapuche. He later trained at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, collaborating with Laura Poitras and Field of Vision on Notes From CARA (Manifesta12, 2018). In 2022 he directed The Seed Generation,and in 2025 he won the award for Best Video Podcast in Italy with MY ZONE. He is currently working on the documentary Baba – بابا while developing a new project based on his family’s Southern Italian wedding archive.

Laila Sit Aboha is a PhD candidate at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. Her research examines the Palestinian diaspora and generational conflict through a postcolonial lens. She is the daughter of a survivor of the 1967 exile and the granddaughter of a survivor of the 1948 Nakba. An activist with Giovani Palestinesi d’Italia, she lives between Milan and Florence, with her heart in Naples.

Producer’s Profile

Marta Melina is an Italian-based film producer working with SMK Factory (Bologna), a company specialised in social documentaries. Alongside production, she has extensive experience in fundraising, impact campaigns, crowdfunding campaigns. Among her recent works are: the impact campaign for Sarura (Nicola Zambelli – 2021) selected at FIFDH Impact days 2020, acquired by Al Jazeera Arabic; Kissing Gorbaciov (Andrea Mariani, Luigi D’Alife, 2023), premiered at Festival dei Popoli, nominated for the 2024 Nastri d’Argento, toured successfully in Italian cinemas. She is currently following the development of three documentaries: Waves Album by Armando Duccio Ventriglia, Hans Clemer – An Unauthorized Biography by Fredo Valla, and Missing by Cecilia Fasciani.

SAMA

Directed by: Flavia Cappellini
Produced by: Kristian van der Heyden | Harald House (Belgium), Alex King, Andrea Kurland | Perfidious Pictures (UK), Lydia Kali | Urbania (France), May Jabareen | Philistine Film (Palestine)
Country of Production: Belgium, UK, France, Palestine
Original Title: Gaza Sunbirds
Runtime: 90'
Expected Release: May 2027
Production Stage: Post-Production 
1st Feature: Yes
Looking for: Co-Producers, Broadcasters, Sales Agents, Distributors

Synopsis:

When a young amputee cyclist and his underdog team of bike racers chase their dream of representing Palestine on the world stage, their six-year odyssey becomes a matter of life or death adaptation as bombs descend on Gaza.

Director’s Profile

Flavia Cappellini is a self-shooting director who also works as a correspondent for Sky News Italia in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Her work as a filmmaker has appeared on The Guardian, Al Jazeera English, Sky News Italia and RAI. Her stories explore unexpected aspects of our world by picking out the human experiences and everyday quirks that give meaning to complexity without over-simplification. This multi-year project is her first feature film, and it relates sport to conflict, politics and geographical boundaries. She has also investigated abortion, burials and women’s reproductive rights in Italy through original testimonies and unearthed records. Her career in filmmaking started as a producer of films about travel and the environment for RAI, later producing and shooting in-depth features about professional road cycling racing around the world for 3 years.

Producer’s Profile

Kristian Van der Heyden began Harald House Belgium in 2016 after honing his skills in Los Angeles as a writer, producer, and actor for eight years. He produced A Punk Daydream (2019), a documentary that delves into the street punk culture of Indonesia, which premiered at Rotterdam Film Festival in 2019. Kristian produced Slave Island, a co-production with Belgium, Estonia, Taiwan, and Italy, about present-day slavery on a remote island of Indonesia, which premiered at Movies That Matter 2025 and won Best Belgian Documentary at Docville 2025. His projects typically explore significant social challenges within various communities, across cultures. Appreciative of the learning experiences each project brings, Kristian’s dedication to impactful storytelling was acknowledged in 2022 when he was named an Emerging Producer at the Ji-Hlava Film Festival.

Super Sila

Directed by: Mohammed Alshareef
Produced by: Ala' Abu Ghoush 
Country of Production: Palestine
Original Title: سوبر سيلا
Runtime: 72'
Expected Release: March 2027
Production Stage: Post-Production 
1st Feature: Yes
Looking for: Festivals, Sales Agents, Distributors, Buyers, Co-Producers, Gap Financing, Strategic Partners, Consultants

Synopsis:

In the heart of the war on Gaza, a father creates an imaginary world where his young daughter becomes a superhero. As war surrounds them, he turns reality into stories to protect her childhood, leaving an open question: does Sila understand what is happening around her, or does she already know more than he thinks?

Director’s Profile

Mohammad Alshareef is a Palestinian filmmaker from Gaza working across documentary and fiction. His films rely on observation and narratives drawn from lived experience. He began his practice independently in Gaza without a structured production environment, developing his skills through self-learning and hands-on work. He later continued his studies at the Higher Institute of Cinema in Cairo, where he trained in directing, screenwriting, cinematography, and working with actors, shaping a cinematic language based on intimacy and proximity. His films have screened at festivals including Toronto, Cairo, Carthage, and Clermont-Ferrand. One of his works reached the Academy Awards shortlist within the From Ground Zero project. His latest film Hassan won the Youth Jury Award at the Vesoul International Festival of Asian Cinema 2026.

Producer’s Profile

Ala’ Abu Ghoush is an independent producer working between Palestine and France. He began his career as an artist before moving into cinema, where he worked for several years as a production designer on fiction films screened at international festivals. He holds a Master’s degree from ENSAV (École Nationale Supérieure d’Audiovisuel) in Toulouse, where his interest in cinematic narrative forms developed, leading him toward producing and accompanying auteur-driven projects.
He has directed several films, including Hammurabi, Metro Gaza, and Goldfish. He currently focuses on developing Palestinian auteur cinema and building international partnerships that enable films to reach global platforms and festivals. On Super Sila, he participates as a producer and project developer, as well as a creative partner accompanying the film’s artistic development and international positioning.

Consultants

Jihan El Tahri is an Egyptian-French award-winning director, writer, visual artist, and producer. She is the General Director of the Berlin-based documentary support and capacity-building institution DOX BOX. In 2017, Tahri was invited to join the Academy of Arts and Sciences (Oscars). Additionally, she is a mentor at the Documentary Campus in Germany and Ouaga Film Lab in Burkina Faso. Her recent work as a visual artist includes exhibitions in France, Germany, Norway, Mexico, and Poland. Tahri started her career as a foreign correspondent covering Middle Eastern politics. In 1990, she began directing and producing documentaries for the BBC, PBS, and Arte. Her award-winning documentaries include “Nasser”, which premiered in the official selection at Toronto International Film Festival and was the grand winner of the Africa Movie Academy Awards; and the Emmy-nominated “House of Saud”. Her writings include: “Les Sept Vies de Yasser Arafat” and “Israel and the Arabs: the 50 Years War”.

Mohamed Jabaly is a Palestinian filmmaker, producer, and artist from Gaza. His award-winning documentary work is a testament to the resilience, beauty, and defiant spirit of his homeland. His latest film, Life is Beautiful, has garnered numerous awards, including Best Directing at IDFA 2023 and Best Nordic Documentary at Nordic Panorama 2024. This follows the global success of his award-winning documentary, Ambulance(2016). Beyond his filmmaking, Jabaly is a dedicated cultural organizer and educator. Before leaving Gaza for Norway in 2014, he ran workshops for aspiring young filmmakers. Now based in Tromsø, he manages the Twin-city project at Tvibit and is a key figure in the Palestine Film Institute, where he oversees the Palestine Film Hub.An active voice in the film community, his expertise is frequently sought as a jury member for international film festivals.

Jabaly holds a B.A. in Moving Images from Nordland Film & Art College and an M.A. in Fine Art from Oslo’s National Academy of the Arts.