Palestine Film Fund Announces Spring 2026 Grantees

BRUSSELS,  22 SEPT 2026 – The Palestine Film Institute (PFI) today announced the recipients of the second funding round of the Palestine Film Fund (PFF), selecting seven outstanding projects out of 107 submissions.

The Fund’s international jury awarded grants to four feature-length films and three short films in various stages of development, production and post-production, with financial support totalling 43.000,00 Euro. Selected projects span documentary, fiction, animation and hybrid forms, working across a range of themes from grief, loss, memory, and the archive to ones that celebrate life and reinforce commitment to resisting erasure; the films depict real and imagined landscapes to hold Palestinian experience in view.

"Palestinian cinema has survived for decades through filmmakers working across barriers to funding, without archives, and often without a way home, " said Reem Shadid, PFI Executive Board Member. “The Fund exists so that their work comes first, and so that the conditions under which a film is made do not determine whether it is made. These seven projects reinforce that the great stories are there, and with sustained resources and a stable infrastructure they are able to thrive.”

The second cycle jury brought together Palestinian-American artist/filmmaker Basma al-Sharif, director/producer Nada Riyadh from Egypt, and Tunisian producer Dora Bouchoucha, who delivered the following statement regarding the selection:

"It is difficult to make films under any circumstances. To make films in Palestine, from Palestine, or across the Palestinian diaspora today comes with a particular set of challenges, but also with an extraordinary urgency to tell, preserve, question and imagine.”

“The projects we encountered reminded us that Palestinian cinema cannot be contained within a single reality or geography. From Ramallah to Gaza, from Jaffa to the diaspora, the selected projects reflect a multiplicity of Palestinian experiences, perspectives and ways of seeing. They demonstrate a desire to tell stories on their own terms, through distinct cinematic languages. In making our selection, we considered not only the artistic strength and potential of the projects, but also the circumstances in which they are being developed and the position of the filmmakers within the industry. We were particularly attentive to projects emerging from challenging working conditions and to young and emerging voices. However, many more film projects deserved support. We wholeheartedly wish all filmmakers strength and freedom in bringing their films to life, and hope they contribute to the richness, diversity and continuity of Palestinian cinema."

Second Cycle Statistics

The Spring 2026 cycle received a total of 107 submissions from around the world, comprising 32 feature-length projects (34%) and 63 short films (66%). Documentary projects represented the majority of feature submissions (56%), while fiction dominated short film applications (46%). Directors identifying as male submitted 63% of applications, with female directors representing 37%.

Selected Projects — Feature Films

The Sky Is No Longer Blue by Kareem Satoom | Palestine | Development | Documentary | 70 min 

The film follows three artists from Gaza as they experience genocide through their bodies, memories, and art, where creative work becomes a direct extension of what they endure: fear, loss, and survival. Through graffiti, sculpture, and painting, they attempt to transform the traces of violence into image, material, and memory - not to aestheticize the devastation, but to understand it and resist its erasure. Alongside their stories, Gaza emerges as a fourth character: a city present in the walls, rubble, sea, alleyways, and faces, shaping the artists' bodies, memories, and work. The three trajectories intersect to reveal how body, memory, city, and art become intertwined in an ongoing attempt to preserve humanity amid genocide.

On the Sea Road by Fitnat Waked | Palestine | Post-production | Documentary | 75 min 

Amid war, through cameras and WhatsApp calls, a fragile yet powerful friendship unfolds between two young Palestinian women - one in besieged Gaza, the other in Yafa - as they struggle to stay connected while distance and collapsing communication threaten to separate them. Their bond becomes both a lifeline and an act of quiet resistance, revealing solidarity, the painful contradictions of their radically unequal realities, and a shared search for freedom and identity.

MILAD – The Birth of Walid by Ahmad Saleh, Basel Nasr and Mats Grorud | Palestine, Jordan, Norway | Development | Animation | 90 min 

Serving a life sentence, Palestinian writer Walid Daqqa turns imagination into reality, summoning five animal companions and an ancient olive tree. When the tree grants them seven magical seeds of invisibility, they execute bold acts of defiance - smuggling writings, a musical instrument, mobile phones, and more. Though each act tightens the grip of the prison walls around them, a frail Walid on his deathbed uses the final seed to reunite with his daughter, Milad, who reveals the secret to passing through the tree into a free world where orchards bloom over the ruins of prisons.

This Is Not a Set by Yumna Marwan | Lebanon, Jordan | Development | Fiction | 100 min 

A satirical nightmare into the unravelling of a Palestinian community in Beirut as a local television production turns their camp into a film set, forcing them to confront the seductions and violences of representation.

Short Films

Mirrors by Nizar Alzaeem | Palestine, UK | Development | Animation | 15 min

The life of a family that could be any family, anywhere - its joys, its ordinary rhythms, its violent erasure - is witnessed entirely through the surface of a mirror: when only a young girl survives bombing and displacement, she goes into the looking-glass, where the final reflection she finds is herself.

Your Specter Will Remain Present in My Mind by Fairouz Hasan | Palestine | Production | Hybrid | 25 min

An experimental documentary film that follows martyr posters across cities, tracing how walls become a living archive of memory, loss, and resistance. Through close observation of weathered, torn, and repeatedly replaced images, that reflects on how public space preserves grief while time, violence, become witnesses to different ways of death.

Gaza RAM by Abod Nasser | Palestine | Production | Animation | 10 min 

When leaving Gaza becomes conditional on erasing every trace of her existence, a young woman is given the opportunity to evacuate to France, on the condition that she leaves all her personal belongings behind. A series of nightmares begins, blurring reality and memory. Realizing that her memories may be the only thing she can carry with her, she decides to transfer her entire archive into her mind, attempting to smuggle her memory across the border.

About the Palestine Film Fund

The Palestine Film Fund provides financial and sectoral support to filmmakers working on short, medium, and feature-length films, at every stage of their journey. Priority is given to those working in the most challenging circumstances: filmmakers based in Palestine, in lower-income countries, and in regions where discrimination against Palestinian voices restricts access to funding opportunities.

Fund partners include Bertha Foundation, IDFA Bertha Fund, International Media Support (IMS), Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC), Intuitive Pictures and Sawsan Asfari. 

About Palestine Film Institute

The Palestine Film Institute (PFI) is an independent Palestinian-led non-profit organisation established in 2019 by a group of Palestinian film workers to support, connect, and sustain the ecosystem of Palestinian cinema across geographies. Through programs that support the development, circulation, and long-term preservation of Palestinian cinema, the Institute works to remove barriers that restrict Palestinian filmmakers’ access to resources, audiences and professional networks. PFI is an inclusive organisation that collaborates  with artists, scholars, and partners of all nationalities who share our values and dedication to the freedom, dignity, and liberation of Palestine.

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