Film of the Week #23
March 3rd - 10th 2021
Private (2004)
Drama
Film of the Week #22
August 26th - September 2nd 2020
Like Twenty Impossibles (2002)
Drama, 20m
When a Palestinian film crew averts a closed checkpoint by taking a remote side road, the political landscape unravels, and the passengers are slowly taken apart by the mundane brutality of military occupation. Both a visual poem and a narrative, like twenty impossibles wryly questions artistic responsibility and the politics of filmmaking, while speaking to the fragmentation of a people.
Director: Annemarie Jacir
Writers: Annemarie Jacir, Kamran Rastegar
Cinematographer: Philippe Bellaiche
Starring: Reem Abu Sbaih, Ismail Dabbagh, Ashraf Abu Moch
Film of the Week #20
August 12th - August 19th 2020
Little Wars (1982)
Drama, 1h 48m
Little Wars tells the story of Lebanon’s civil war in 1975 through three characters. Talal, son of a Feudal lord, returns to his region after the disappearance of his father to become a warlord himself. Soraya is in love with Talal and tries to help him by abducting a businessman. Finally, Nabil, a photojournalist who uses the war to trade drugs and tries to pose as a hero, but is in fact very far from being one. Little stories happening during little wars.
The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 35th Cannes Film Festival in 1982.
Starring: Soraya Khoury, Nabil Ismail, Roger Hawa, Rifaat Tarabay and Rida Khoury
Written & Directed by: Maroun Bagdadi
Dialogue: Kamal Kassar
Cinematography: Edward Lachman and Heiner Hoelscher
Music: Gabrielle Yared
Editing: Joelle Van Effentere
presented in collaboration with
Film of the Week #17
July 22nd - 29th 2020
Return to Haifa (1982)
Drama, 1h 14m
Return to Haifa is based on Kanafani’s novel the plot of which takes place in 1967, when Palestinian refugees living in the newly occupied territories had an opportunity to visit the places from which they had been expelled in 1948. Saeed and Safiyya, a Palestinian couple expelled from Haifa in 1948, visit the home that had been their own. Miriam, a Holocaust survivor and now a Jewish Israeli citizen who lives in their house, lets them in. She moved there with her husband shortly after the Palestinian couple had been uprooted. The Palestinian couple returns to Haifa hoping to discover something about their baby, Khaldun, whom they had left at home that April morning in 1948, not realizing that neither of them would be able to return. The abandoned baby had been adopted by Miriam and her husband who gave him a Hebrew name – Dov, now a soldier in the Israeli army. This tragic encounter depicted by the movie emblematizes the Nakba’s being not only the tragedy of the Palestinian people but also of the Israeli Jews who cannot escape confronting this past and becoming accountable for it.
Director: Kassem Hawal
Film of the Week #16
July 15th - 22nd 2020
Shorts 2
in Short, Drama, Experimental
PFP Film of the Week #16
Read MoreFilm of the Week #14
July 1st - 8th 2020
Giraffada (2013)
Drama, 1h 25m
Ziad is passionate about giraffes. His father works as a vet in a Palestinian zoo. The animals’ lives are threatened after an air raid and the only way to prevent a catastrophe is to go to Tel-Aviv. The conflict as seen by a child, part reality, part fairytale.
Director: Rani Massalha
After the book by: Rani Massalha
Screenplay: Xavier Nemo
Starring: Saleh Bakri; Laure De Clermont-Tonnerre
Production: Tony Copti
Distribution: Pyramid
Film of the Week #11
June 10th - 17th 2020
Pomegranates and Myrrh (2009)
Drama, 1h 35m
Zaid and Kamar are Christian Palestinians; the film begins with their marriage in East Jerusalem. Their happiness as newly weds does not last long though, for soon after the wedding a conflict about the confiscation of Zaid’s olive farm ends up with him being put in prison for an indefinite period of time. Kamar is a strong and modern woman, and to survive this difficult period, she decides to pick up her love for dancing again and joins a group of traditional Palestinian folk dancers despite her new family's disapproval.
A new choreographer, the Palestinian returnee Kais joins the dance group and brings a fresh breeze to the group and to Kamar. Her life is thrown into turmoil as she becomes increasingly attached to Kais and is caught between her desire to dance and not breaking family and social taboos about the role of a prisoner's wife, while life under occupation rages on.
Director: Najwa Najjar
Producer: Hani Kort
Starring:
Hiam Abbass
Yasmine Al Massri
Ashraf Farah
Ali Suleiman
Samia Kuzmoz
Lea Tsmeal
Valentina Abu Aksa
Walid Abdul Salam
Lutf Nuwaisr
Film of the Week #10
June 3rd - June 10th 2020
Shorts 1
Bonboné (2017)
Dir. Rakan Mayasi / 2017 / Drama / 15 mins
A palestinian inmate serving time in an israeli jail receives a visit from his wife who devises a bold and crafty operation to fulfill their secret desires.
A Drowning Man (2017)
Dir. Mahdi Fleifel / 2017 / Drama / 15 mins
Alone and far from home, The Kid makes his way through a strange city looking for the means to get through his day. Surrounded by predators he is forced to make compromises merely to survive, his life of exile grows one day longer.
In Vitro (2019)
Dir. Larrissa Sansour and Søren Lind / 2019 / Sci-Fi / 27 mins
Set in the aftermath of an eco-disaster. A vast bunker under the biblical town of Bethlehem has been converted into an enormous orchard. Using heirloom seeds collected in the final days before the disaster, a group of scientists are preparing to replant the soil above.
Izriqaq (2013)
Dir. Rama Mari / 2013 / Drama / 20 min
In a land dotted with killing machines they find an easy cover-up for their crime. And even when the truth starts to find its way out, fate will swiftly play a game so common for this land.
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.
Yellow Moms (2010)
Dir. Firas Khoury / 2010 / Drama / 30 min
9 year-old introverted Nizar decides to compete with the village children in the traditional Easter "breaking eggs" games. He is cheating his way to win, all for the sake of Jesus.
Film of the Week #9
May 20th - May 27th 2020
Tale of the Three Jewels (1995)
Drama, 1h 52m
Yussef is a twelve-year old Palestinian child of the First Intifada. With his father is in prison and his brother a fugitive from the Israeli army, he lives alone with his mother and sister. Though his life is marked by violence, he lives in his imagination, often escaping from the refugee-camp into the Gaza countryside.
While hunting for birds one day, Yussef meets Aida, a young gypsy girl who poses a daunting challenge, leading him into a perilous adventure.
This lyrical and moving work was shot in the early months of 1994, while Gaza remained under Israeli military occupation, and was the first feature film ever to be shot entirely in the Gaza Strip.
Writer & Director: Michel Khleifi
Produced by: Omar Al-Qattan and Michel Khleifi
Music: Abde Azaria
Production Manager: George Khleifi
Starring:
Mohammad Nahhal
Hana’a Nehmeh
Ghassan Abu Libdeh
Bushra Qaraman
Makram Khouri
Mohammad Bakri
Film of the Week #7
May 13th - May 20th 2020
3000 Nights (2015)
Drama, 1h 43m
Layal is a newlywed Palestinian schoolteacher who is falsely accused and incarcerated in an Israeli prison, where she gives birth to a baby boy. Through her struggle to protect her child and her relationship with the prisoners around her, she finds the strength to stand up for herself and fight for her son.
Layal is a newlywed Palestinian schoolteacher who is falsely accused and incarcerated in an Israeli prison, where she gives birth to a baby boy. Through her struggle to protect her child and her relationship with the prisoners around her, she finds the strength to stand up for herself and fight for her son.
Writer & Director: Mai Masri
Produced by: Nour Productions, Les Films D'ici, Orjouane Productions
Starring: Maisa Abd Elhadi, Nadira Omran, Rakeen Saad, Raeda Adon, Abeer Hadad, Anaheed Fayyad, Haifa Agha, Khitam Edelbi, Hana Chamoun, Izabel Ramadan, Laura Hawwa, Karim Saleh, Ahmad Al-Omari, Yussef Abu-Warda, Eman Hayel, George Khleifi, Hussein Nakhleh, Zaid Qada'
Film of the Week #6
May 6th - May 13th 2020
Laila's Birthday (2013)
Drama, 1h 11m
A judge is forced to become a taxi driver when the government runs out of money to pay his wages. On the day of his daughter's birthday, his wife insists that he needs to be home early with a present and a cake. Committed to the task, he sets out to make it home for Laila’s birthday. Everyday life in Palestine, however, has other plans.
Writer & Director: Rashid Masharawi
Cinematographers: Tarek Ben Abdallah, Néstor Sanz
Editor: Pascale Chavance
Music: Kaies Sellami
Producers: Mohamed Habib Attia, Peter van Vogelpoel and Rashid Masharawi
Starring: Mohammad Bakri, Areen Omari, Nour Zoubi
Film of the Week #5
April 29th - May 5th 2020
Omar (2013)
Drama, 1h 38m
Arrested after the death of an Israeli soldier, a Palestinian baker (Adam Bakri) agrees to work as an informant, but his true motives and alliances remain hidden.
Omar is a 2013 Palestinian drama directed by Hany Abu-Assad. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Special Jury Prize. The film was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, and was screened at the United Nations in New York on the 1st of May, 2014.
Director: Hany Abu-Assad
Cinematographer: Ehab Assal
Editors: Martin Brinkler, Eyas Salman
Starring: Adam Bakri, Leem Lubany, Walleed Zuaiter, Eyad Hourani, Samer Bisharat
Film of the Week #2
April 8th - 15th 2020
Amreeka (2009)
Drama, 1h 36m
When a Palestinian single mom and her teenage son immigrate to small-town Illinois during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, they face racism, discrimination and unemployment in their adopted homeland.
Winner of the FIPRESCI Critics Prize at Cannes in 2009 and voted one of the top ten independent films of the year by the National Board of Review.
Writer & Director: Cherien Dabis
Starring: Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Hiam Abbass and Alia Shawkat
“Amreeka isn’t a story of American prejudice, but of American reality, the good and the bad.”
Film of the Week #1
April 1st - 7th 2020
July 20 - 27th 2022
Dégradé (2015)
