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

Ouroboros (2017)

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In Memory of Yaser Murtaja

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Experimental, 1h 17m

An homage to the Gaza Strip based on the eternal return. A journey following one man through five different landscapes marks the end as the beginning, forgetting as the way forward, and the failure of civilization.

Writer & Director: Basma Alsharif

Cinematographer: Ben Russel

Drone & Steadycam (Gaza): Yaser Murtaja

Sound: Federico Chiari

Original Music: Yann Gourdon, Bunny People

Voiceover: Sky Hopinka

Starring: Diego Marcon, Claire De Pimodan, Lauren Strom Berg, Joseph Valdez, Yann Gourdon

“Ouroboros is an essay on displacement, the psychological mindscape of physical removal from one’s home...It speaks a cinematic language unlike any other.”

— Daniel Schindel, The Film Stage

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

Jerusalem Bride (2010)

75 minutes, Drama

Through the daily life of Jerusalemite social worker Riham, we discover the difficult situation and suffering experienced by four families because of the political, economic and social circumstances in the Old City. Riham faces her own Personal difficulties in her wish to marry Omar. His family opposes the marriage fearing for their own reputation, do to the habits of her brother.

Director: Sahera Darbis

Haifa (1996)

Drama, 1h 15m

Haifa, nicknamed after the city he longs for, comes and goes in a Palestinian refugee camp. Although he is seen as the town fool, there are many things that only he knows. He is closely related to the family of Abu Said, a former policeman who is has high hopes for the political developments promised by the peace process. Oum Said, his wife, hangs her hope instead on the imminent release of their eldest son, Said, from jail. Their youngest son, Siad, is cynical and rebellious. Sabah, their twelve year old daughter sees the future through the eyes of a romantic, searching for what it might hold in store for her.

Writer & Director: Rashid Masharawi

Cinematographer: Edwin Verstegen

Editor: Hadara Oren

Music: Said Morad-Sabrin

Set Decorator: Jamal Afghani

Starring:

Mohammad Bakri

Hiam Abbass

Areen Omari

Ahmed Abu Saloum

Nawal Zaqout

Khalid Awad

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

Habibi (2011)

Drama, 1h 8m

Habibi, a story of forbidden love, is a fiction feature set in Gaza. Two students in the West Bank are forced to return home to Gaza, where their love defies tradition. To reach his lover, Qays grafittis poetry across town. Habibi is a modern re-telling of the famous ancient Sufi parable Majnun Layla. The full Arabic title is ‘Habibi Rasak Kharban,’ which translates as “Darling, something’s wrong with your head.”

Writer & Director: Susan Youssef
Cinematography: PJ Raval
Editor: Susan Youssef & Man Kit Lam
Music: Menno Cruijsen
Starring: Maisa Abd Elhadi & Kais Nashif

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

Sara (2014)

Drama, 1h 25m

A screenwriter and a director are working on a film about Sara, a Palestinian girl in one of Gaza's refugee camps, who is a victim of an "honour killing". The screenwriter is unable to write an ending that is both compelling and fictitious - the happy ending that he had hoped for. Meanwhile, the director, who is insistent on upholding the truth, is as keen to end his film, as he is to help his friend, who is deeply affected by Sara's story. The film presents the different sides of Gaza, whose people are hurt by everyday issues as much as by death.

Director: Khalil al Mozian

Writers: Naim Al Khatib & Khalil al Mozian

Producer: Jamal Abu Alqumsan

Cinematography: Ibrahim Yaghi

Starring: Naim Al Khatib

Jamal Abu Alqumsan

Inas Al-Saqa

Haia Ashour

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

May in the Summer (2013)

Documentary, 1h 39m

May returns to her childhood home in Jordan for her wedding. Shortly after reuniting with her sisters and their long-since divorced parents, myriad familial and cultural conflicts lead May to question the big step she is about to take.

Writer & Director: Cherien Dabis

Cinematography: Brian Rigney Hubbard

Editor: Sabine Hoffman

Music: Kareem Roustom

Starring: Cherian Dabis

Bill Pullman

Alia Shawkat

Hiam Abbass

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

Salt of This Sea (2008)

Drama, 1h 48m

Soraya, born in Brooklyn in a working class community of Palestinian refugees, discovers that her grandfather’s savings were frozen in a bank account in Jaffa when he was exiled in 1948. Stubborn, passionate and determined to reclaim what is hers, she fulfils her life-long dream of “returning” to Palestine. Once there, slowly she is taken apart by the reality around her and is forced to confront her own anger. She meets Emad, a young Palestinian whose ambition, contrary to hers, is to leave forever. Tired of the constraints that dictate their lives, they know in order to be free, they must take things into their own hands, even if it’s illegal. In this quest for life, we follow their trail through remains of Palestine.

Writer & Director: Annemarie Jacir

Starring: Suheir Hammad & Saleh Bakri

Cinematography: Benoît Chamaillard

Music: Kamran Rastegar

Editing: Michèle Hubinon