dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997)

Documentary, 1h 8m

Buckle up for dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, the acclaimed hijacking documentary that eerily foreshadowed 9-11. We meet the romantic skyjackers who fought their revolutions and won airtime on the passenger planes of the 1960’s. By the 1990s, such characters apparently are no more, replaced on our TV screens by stories of state-sponsored suitcase bombs.

Director Johan Grimonprez investigates the politics behind this change, at the same time unwrapping our own complicity in the urge for ultimate disaster. Playing on Don DeLillo’s riff in the novel MAO II: ‘what terrorists gain, novelists lose’ and ‘home is a failed idea’, he blends archive hijackings with surreal and banal themes including fast food, pet statistics, disco and his quirky home movies. David Shea wrote the superb soundtrack to this roller coaster through history, best described in the words of one hijacked Pepsi executive as: “running the gamut of many emotions: from surprise to shock, to fear, to joy, to laughter and then again, fear.”

Writer & Director: Johan Grimonprez

Original Music & Sample Collage: David Shea

Red Army/PFLP: Declaration of World War (1971)

Documentary, 1h 9m

In 1971, Koji Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi, both having ties to the Japanese Red Army, stopped in Palestine on their way home from the Cannes Film festival. There they caught up with JRA ex-pats Fusako Shigenobu and Mieko Toyama in training camps to create a newsreel-style agit-prop film based off of the "landscape theory" (fûkeiron) that Adachi and Wakamatsu had developed. The theory, most evident at work in A.K.A. Serial Killer (1969), aimed to move the emphasis of film from situations to landscapes as expression of political and economical power relations.

In 1974 Adachi left Japan and committed himself to the Palestinian Revolution and linked up with the Japan Red Army. His activities thereafter were not revealed until he was arrested and imprisoned in 1997 in Lebanon. In 2001 Adachi was extradited to Japan, and after two years of imprisonment, he was released and subsequently published Cinema/Revolution [Eiga/Kakumei], an auto-biographical account of his life.

Directors: Masao Adachi & Koji Wakamatsu

Featuring:

Rokihiro Toga

Aoi Nakajima

Fusako Shigenobu

Susumu Iwabuchi

Masao Matsuda

Masao Adachi

Leila Khaled

Ghassan Kanafani

Fertile Memory (1981)

Documentary, 1h 39m

Fertile Memory is the feature debut of pioneering director Michel Khleifi. Lyrically blending both documentary and narrative elements, Khleifi skillfully and lovingly crafts a portrait of two Palestinian women whose individual struggles both define and transcend the politics that have torn apart their homes and their lives.

“Both Sahar and Romia are trapped by the society in which they live, but they experience this stuckness differently. Sahar possesses the words, the other doesn’t. Romia exists, but without defining herself as an individual. Both are frustrated by history, the intellectual one perhaps doubly so for her awareness of this frustration, of the loneliness imposed on her by her situation as a divorcée.

Romia accepts her solitude after becoming a widow without bitterness, because she has decided that there is no other way. One character’s words corner those of the other, and I insisted on the film to work in that way, so that the viewer reacts to it, takes active part in the film, becomes an accomplice.”

— Michel Khleifi

Director: Michel Khleifi

Cinematographers: Marc-André Batigne & Yves van der Meer

Sound: Ricardo Castro

Editor: Moufida Tlatli

Featuring: Farah Hatoum & Sahar Khalifeh

Jaffa: Mother of the Stranger (2019)

Documentary, 1h 12m

Constructed through oral histories, Jaffa tells the story of the city from the perspective of those who lived there before their expulsion in 1948. They share their narratives and memories in order to describe life in Jaffa before the Nakba: details like the layout of neighbourhoods and roads, and the markets and cultural centres, as well as the citrus industry. Together, their accounts paint a picture of a vibrant city, stolen by colonization. Their testimony concludes with a heart wrenching account of the inhabitants’ decision to flee as violence engulfed their home.

Director: Raed Duzdar

Frontiers of Dreams and Fears (2001)

Documentary, 1h

Mona and Manar are two Palestinian girls growing up in refugee camps in Beirut and Bethlehem. Despite the overwhelming barriers that separate them, the girls form a close friendship through letters and a dramatic meeting at the Lebanese border. Shot during the liberation of southern Lebanon from Israeli occupation and at the beginning of the Palestinian intifada, frontiers of dreams and fears articulates the feelings, hopes, and growing activism of a generation of young Palestinians living in exile.

Director: Mai Masri

Producers: Mai Masri, Jean Khalil Chamoun

Music: Anouar Brahem

Cinematography: Jimmy Michel, Hussein Nassar

Featuring: Manar Faraj, Mona Zaaroura

Mayor (2020)

Documentary, 1h 29m

MAYOR follows Musa Hadid, the Christian mayor of Ramallah, during his second term in office. His immediate goals: repave the sidewalks, attract more tourism, and plan the city’s Christmas celebrations. His ultimate mission: to end the occupation of Palestine.

Rich with detailed observation and humor, MAYOR offers a portrait of dignity amidst the madness and absurdity of endless occupation while posing a question: how do you run a city when you don’t have a country?

Director: David Osit

Editors: David Osit, Eric Daniel Metzgar

Featuring: Musa Hadid, Ameer Assadi, Walaa Eltiti, Yazeed Faruja

Score: Geinoh Yamashirogumi, Toru Takemitsu, Sam Thompson, David Osit

Shorts 6

The Seven Villages (2020)

Dir. Farah Abou Kharroub / 2020 / Documentary / 17 mins

Young filmmaker’s Farah Abou Kharroub’s insight into a dramatic family history which is not entirely over. Over the course of one video call, family members share their experiences as Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Their statements are accompanied by dynamic animation.

The Cup Reader (2013)

Dir. Suha Araj / 2013 / Drama / 12 mins

Warde, shamed as a young girl yet renowned in Palestine for her mystical seeing and matchmaking lives with her sister Jaleleh and reads the fortunes of her clients. Each woman has made or will make a choice between love and marriage, not having had the luxury of both.

Your Father Was Born 100 Years Old, and So Was the Nakba (2017)

Dir. Razan AlSalah / 2017 / Experimental / 7 mins

Oum Ameen, a Palestinian grandmother, returns to her hometown Haifa through Google Maps Streetview, today, the only way she can see Palestine.

Falafala (2019)

Dir. Mohammed Almughanni / 2019 / Documentary / 30 mins

In 1972, Abdul Alnajjar is flown in secret to Denmark to be the first child to receive a heart valve operation. But when the only link between Abdul and his family in Jordan is severed, his life takes a different direction.

The Bomb (2018)

Dir. Dima Hamdan / 2018 / Drama / 21 mins

Wasim and his mother haven't been getting along for a while. When the police ask them to evacuate their home in Berlin for one night to excavate a World War II bomb that's been discovered in the area, more feelings of anger and hurt come to the surface.

Strange Cities are Familiar (2019)

Dir. Saeed Taji Farouky / 2019 / Drama / 21 mins

Ashraf has been a political refugee in London for some 30 years, content with spending his days in his study or at his local social club. One day he receives a phone call from his friend in Palestine, telling him that his son Moataz has been fatally wounded in a protest. His friend pleads with Ashraf to return home.

The Dupes (1972)

Drama, 1h 46m

Set in the 1950s, The Dupes traces the destinies of three different men brought together by their dispossession, their despair and their hope for a better future. The protagonists are Palestinian refugees who are trying to make their way across the border from Iraq into Kuwait, the 'Promised Land,' concealed in the steel tank of a truck. Representing different dimensions of the Palestinian experience, each one believes he can make a new life for himself, but as the film’s title suggests, their flight is no solution. One of the first Arab films to address the Palestinian question, 'The Dupes' is based on the 1962 novella 'Men in the Sun' by assassinated Palestinian writer, artist and resistance leader, Ghassan Kanafani. Set in Palestine and Iraq, and filmed in Syria by Tewfik Saleh, an Egyptian director, the film was banned in several Arab countries due to its implied criticisms of Arab governments.

Director: Tewfik Saleh

Writers: Ghassan Kanafani (novel “Men in the Sun”), Tewfik Saleh

Cinematographer: Bahgat Heidar

Editors: Farin Dib, Saheb Haddad

Music: Solhi El-Wadi

Sound Department: Zoheir Fahmy

Starring: Mohamed Kheir-Halouani, Abdul Rahman Al Rashi, Bassam Lofti Abou-Ghazala, Thanaa Debsi

Ibrahim: A Fate to Define (2019)

Documentary, 1h 15m

In this provocative and personal documentary, director Lina Al Abed searches for traces of her disappeared father: a seemingly ordinary Palestinian family man who was actually a secret member of a militant splinter faction and vanished when she was just a child. Her journey to discover what happened to her father becomes a quest to define her identity, and her relationship to Ibrahim’s fate.

Director: Lina Al Abed

Editor: Rami El Nihawi

The Brazilian Palestine (2017)

Documentary, 1h 19m

Marked by ethnic and cultural diversity, Rio Grande do Sul now houses thousands of Palestinian immigrants and their descendants. The communities born of the Nakba seek, in the diaspora, full integration and a new citizenship in Brazil. Today, they try to survive, grow and gain recognition for their economic, social and cultural contribution. With scenes filmed in southern Brazil and the Middle East, The Brazilian Palestine reveals the roots, the degree of integration, and the sense of belonging felt by six families enduring prejudice, persecution and war. Theirs are stories of the living, that reveal lost places and stories left behind.

Director: Omar L. de Barros Filho

Presented in collaboration with Cine Fertile Association- The International Latin Arab Film Festival

¡Yallah! ¡Yallah! (2017)

Documentary, 1h 15m

The film focuses on the story of seven characters, which are connected to the world of football in one way or another. Through their daily lives, we get to know their bond with the sport, their activities and the problems they have to face due to the occupation by Israel. Even though they are constantly affected by Israel's subjugation of Palestine, they manage to survive and endure all sorts of issues in order to enjoy one of their biggest passions: football.

Director: Fernando Romanazzo & Cristian Pirovano

Production: Aqueronte Producciones & Palestine Football Association

Palestine: Stolen Images (2018)

Documentary, 1h 50m

Tracing the last 18 years of conflict between Israel and Palestine, this film-essay reflects on the shared history of national liberation movements in Latin America and the Middle East. Directed by Argentinian documentarian Rodrigo Vazquez, the film combines exclusive interviews with historical figures, direct-cinema from the battle-field and never-before-seen archival footage found in 2011, gathering dust on a shelf, in the Cuban Film Institute.

Director: Rodrigo Vazquez

Emwas: Restoring Memories (2016)

Documentary, 52m

Filmmaker Dima Abu Ghoush was born in the village of Emwas, 16 miles from Jerusalem in the Latrun area of the West Bank. On the second day of the 1967 War, Dima, aged 2, and her family were expelled by the Israeli army, like all the other villagers, along with all inhabitants of the nearby villages of Yalo and Bayt Nuba. All her life, Dima has heard stories about Emwas, but she knows this place only as Canada Park, which was established by Israel in 1973 in the villages’ place. In 2009, with the help of family and friends, Dima decides to make a model of Emwas as it used to be. The film revives the lost village through the collective memory of those who used to live there and still dream of returning.

Director: Dima Abu Ghoush

Cinematography: Muayad Alayan

Editor: Toby Trotter

Producer: Baker Zarour

One More Jump (2019)

Documentary, 1h 13m

Gaza Parkour Team founder Abdallah has managed to escape Gaza. His friend Jehad still lives there, training young athletes for whom sport remains the only thing imbued with hope amidst the conflict. Is it better to leave to fulfil your dreams or stay and fight for your country? The question is the common thread running through this deeply moving account of sport, friendship, and exile.

Writer & Director: Emanuele Gerosa

Producer: Enrica Capra

Director of Photography: Matteo Delbò

Editor: Nicolò Tettamanti

Music: Zeno Gabaglio

Fixer in Gaza: Mohammed Abu Safia

Route 181 (2003)

Documentary, 4h 32m

Route 181, offers an unusual vision of the inhabitants of Palestine-Israel, a common vision of an Israeli and a Palestinian.

In the summer of 2002, for two long months, Eyal Sivan and Michel Khleifi travelled together from the south to the north of their country of birth, traced their trajectory on a map and called it Route 181. This virtual line follows the borders outlined in Resolution 181, which was adopted by the United Nations on November 29th 1947 to partition Palestine into two states.

As they travel along this route, they meet women and men, Israeli and Palestinian, young and old, civilians and soldiers, filming them in their everyday lives. Each of these characters has their own way of evoking the frontiers that separate them from their neighbours: concrete, barbed-wire, cynicism, humour, indifference, suspicion, aggression…Frontiers have been built on the hills and in the plains, on mountains and in valleys but above all inside the minds and souls of these two peoples and in the collective unconscious of both societies.

Route 181, Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel, takes us on a disorientating journey across this tiny territory with vast ramifications.

Directors: Michel Khleifi & Eyal Sivan

Private Investigation (2002)

Documentary, 1h 30m

".... I used to ... all Palestinian kids in Israel, used to hold the Israeli flag and sing for Israel in Arabic. Each year we used to do that, to celebrate, we would prepare dance shows, theater plays and songs! A lot of decorations and flags everywhere... And no one said anything. Imagine we used to stand on lines at the schoolyard each with his little blue and white flag. But the next day which is the Independence Day, a free day when all families and friends were supposed to go out on a picnic somewhere, or to the beach... my father always used to be sick and we never left the house on that specific day.

This is my story, this memory is mine. It goes back twenty years and it has branched out and played an essential part in my buildup, in what I am today. This film was born as I was rethinking all of this, and from my feeling haunted by the deafening silence of my country.

It is a documentary on living as a Palestinian in the Israeli state, holding an Israeli ID card and a Palestinian memory and belonging.”

Director: Ula Tabari

Samouni Road (2018)

Documentary, 2h 8m

In the rural outskirts of Gaza City a small community of farmers, the Samouni extended family, is about to celebrate a wedding. It's going to be the first celebration since the latest war. Amal, Fuad, their brothers and cousins have lost their parents, their houses and their olive trees. The neighborhood where they live is being rebuilt. As they replant trees and plow fields, they face their most difficult task: piecing together their own memory. Through these young survivors' recollections, Samouni Road conveys a deep, multifaceted portrait of a family before, during and after the tragic event that changed its life forever.

Director: Stefano Savona

Cast: Amal Samouni, Fouad Samouni

Producers: Penelope Bortoluzzi, Marco Alessi, Cécile Lestrade

Music: Giulia Tagliavia

Editor: Luc Forveille

Shorts 3

Naim and Wadee'a (2000)

Dir. Najwa Najjar // 2000 // Documentary // 20 Mins

This documentary by Najwa Najjar explores social life in Yaffa through a miniature portrait of a Palestinian couple, Wadee’a Aghabi and Naim Azar, the filmmaker’s grandparents who lived there before the expulsion in 1948. The story is built on the oral accounts of Naim and Wadee’a’s three daughters, offering a glimpse into the memories of a couple forced to leave their home, and the effect displacement had on their family.

Solomon’s Stone (2015)

Dir. Ramzi Maqdisi // 2015 // Comedy // 26 mins

Hussein, a young Palestinian man, receives a letter from the Israeli post office to appear in person to receive a package. He has to pay the sum of 20,000 $ US dollars in order to collect that package. Hussein’s curiosity to find out what the package contains drives him to sell everything he owns, despite the outright rejection of his mother, changing their lives forever.
Adapted from the novel Blue Light by Hussein Barghouty.

Strawberry (2017)

Dir. Aida Kaadan // 2017 // Drame // 17 mins

Samir, 43, is the owner of a shoe shop in Ramallah who has never seen the sea. He decides to sneak past the Israeli border with other Palestinian construction workers to fulfill his dream of seeing the sea. Instead, he ends up at a construction site where Anas, 22, asks him to work for him.

Ambience (2017)

Dir. Wissam Aljafari // 2017 // Experimental // 15 mins

Two young Palestinians try to record a demo for a Music Competition inside a noisy crowded refugee camp. While failing to record because of the chaos surrounding them, they discover a creative method for meeting the deadline.

Roof Knocking (2017)

Dir. Sina Salimi // 2017 // Drama // 13 mins

In Gaza, a woman prepares a meal for her family to break the fast in the month of Ramadan. A phone call by an Israeli soldier alerts her of the bombing of her building in 10 minutes. Coming to accept her family’s fate is the only way she has to make a stand for her life, with grim consequences.

Yamo (2011)

Documentary, 1h 6m

It's a film about today, about the choices we make in life. A film about time fleeing at full speed and time suspended. This is not a portrait of my mother, nor of my memory, nor of my house, nor of my family. Yamo is the mixture of all these elements which brings us towards a cut-down dialogue between two generations. A dialogue about dreams, failures, the present, and the future.

Writer & Director: Rami El-Nihawi

Producers: Monica Borgmann & Lokman Slim for UMAM Productions / Rami El-Nihawi for Sakado

Photography: Rami Nihawi & Maroon Asmar

Sound Recordist: Rayan Obeideyin

Editing: Anne de Mo

Sound Design: Lama Sawaya

War Generation - Beirut (1988)

Documentary, 50m

In Beirut, children grow up on the barricades and soon trade their toy pistols for real machine guns. War Generation - Beirut explores the lives, dreams and fears of three generations of young people living in the heart of the civil war in Lebanon. This seminal work from Jean Chamoun and Mai Masri remains one of the most powerful anti-war documents of the period.

Produced & Directed By: Jean Chamoun & Mai Masri

Photographed & Edited By: Mai Masri

Sound: Jean Chamoun

Narrator: Margaret Magnusson