Film of the Week #102
March 19th - March 26th 2025
Guest curated by Batool Elhennawy, Contemporary Image Collective (Cairo)
A Stone’s Throw (2024)
in Short, Experimental
Short
Film of the Week #101
March 12th - March 19th 2025
Guest curated by Batool Elhennawy, Contemporary Image Collective (Cairo)
Abou Farid’s War (2021)
in Short, Experimental
Experimental, 31m
Archaeology inspector and conservator Abou Farid shares part of his image library documenting the condition of mosaic works in the aftermath of several raids on Ma’arrat Al-Numan Museum in Idlib, Syria as well as the independent preservation efforts that ensued. The images give way to an aleatory conversation interweaving questions of cultural heritage and territory, preservation techniques and destruction, traceability and looting, and the production and circulation of images in times of war.
Director: Omar Mismar
This month, the films of the Palestine Film Platform have been guest curated by Batool Batool Elhennawy of the Contemporary Image Collective in Cairo. Between Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, this film program thinks through the zionist/imperialist threat of a “regional war” and the ways the zionist occupation of Palestine led to an intersectional history of resistance in the region. The films work with themes of inaccessibility, in location of filming, or visual language, due to regimes in the three countries, and by extension their relationship to the occupation. In two overlapping types of oppression, the program attempts to think of the complexity of liberation, and the images of resistance. Ones that document, maneuver, or navigate a political catastrophe (both the distinctive and the ongoing: the nakba, the genocide, or ongoing crimes of the occupation). While the history and news from the region intersect, each geo-political site is different. As we delve into the filmmakers’ stories, perhaps we see how far the distinction is essential to a unified cause. The sentiments are shared, and the goal of liberation is one, but the complexities speak volumes.
The films engage in one on one relationships and conversations, from seemingly private, or at least specific, encounters. These conversations lead us to think of the tools of cinema as a form of observation, and a mediator of experience, one that can redefine or interplay with the experience itself. In a time where we pay tribute on a daily basis to the images of resistance from inside Gaza, the West Bank, and South Lebanon, as well as think of the power an image can hold to divert an oppressive narrative, to speak truth, to break the definition of zionist time. We additionally think, can these moments of agency and clarity in a political story come to us quietly, often unnoticed? The Syrian post-revolutionary context adds a distinct timeline and spatiality of resistance. While we listen to the filmmakers and their subjects on site, as they share a camera, we hope to engage in the potential that telling a historical story has to accumulate within the discourse of liberation.
Batool Elhennawy is an artist and cultural programmer. She studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University. She worked with the Cairo Institute for Arts and Sciences in Cairo and Alexandria, as well as doing research for art and culture institutions and projects. She participated in Spring Sessions residency (2017), The Lab Residency (2019) at Darat al Funun, Amman, Jordan, and Arriving Elsewhere (2019) in Wadi Rum, Jordan, PS: Communitism (2023) in Athens, where she developed and exhibited work, and co-curated After Hours residency (2020) at Darat al Funun. She is currently working as a programmer at Contemporary Image Collective (CIC). Her practice revolves around working with theory to find starting points for projects that might take on other forms, with a focus on text, and (moving) image.
Film of the Week #100
March 5th - March 12th 2025
Guest curated by Batool Elhennawy, Contemporary Image Collective (Cairo)
A Plate of Sardines (1997)
in Short, Documentary
Drama, 17m
In the company of fellow Syrian filmmaker Mohammad Malas, ground-breaking director Omar Amiralay revisits the ruins of the destroyed Golan village of Quneytra, occupied by Israel and then abandoned following the 1973 war. Shots of Quneytra – symbolically ransacked by the Israeli army – provides a haunting backdrop to this exploration of memory, place and politics. The director’s accomplished blending of reenactments, interviews and landscape imagery makes A Plate of Sardines an integral and striking contribution to Arab cinema.
Director: Omar Amiralay
This month, the films of the Palestine Film Platform have been guest curated by Batool Batool Elhennawy of the Contemporary Image Collective in Cairo. Between Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, this film program thinks through the zionist/imperialist threat of a “regional war” and the ways the zionist occupation of Palestine led to an intersectional history of resistance in the region. The films work with themes of inaccessibility, in location of filming, or visual language, due to regimes in the three countries, and by extension their relationship to the occupation. In two overlapping types of oppression, the program attempts to think of the complexity of liberation, and the images of resistance. Ones that document, maneuver, or navigate a political catastrophe (both the distinctive and the ongoing: the nakba, the genocide, or ongoing crimes of the occupation). While the history and news from the region intersect, each geo-political site is different. As we delve into the filmmakers’ stories, perhaps we see how far the distinction is essential to a unified cause. The sentiments are shared, and the goal of liberation is one, but the complexities speak volumes.
The films engage in one on one relationships and conversations, from seemingly private, or at least specific, encounters. These conversations lead us to think of the tools of cinema as a form of observation, and a mediator of experience, one that can redefine or interplay with the experience itself. In a time where we pay tribute on a daily basis to the images of resistance from inside Gaza, the West Bank, and South Lebanon, as well as think of the power an image can hold to divert an oppressive narrative, to speak truth, to break the definition of zionist time. We additionally think, can these moments of agency and clarity in a political story come to us quietly, often unnoticed? The Syrian post-revolutionary context adds a distinct timeline and spatiality of resistance. While we listen to the filmmakers and their subjects on site, as they share a camera, we hope to engage in the potential that telling a historical story has to accumulate within the discourse of liberation.
Batool Elhennawy is an artist and cultural programmer. She studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Helwan University. She worked with the Cairo Institute for Arts and Sciences in Cairo and Alexandria, as well as doing research for art and culture institutions and projects. She participated in Spring Sessions residency (2017), The Lab Residency (2019) at Darat al Funun, Amman, Jordan, and Arriving Elsewhere (2019) in Wadi Rum, Jordan, PS: Communitism (2023) in Athens, where she developed and exhibited work, and co-curated After Hours residency (2020) at Darat al Funun. She is currently working as a programmer at Contemporary Image Collective (CIC). Her practice revolves around working with theory to find starting points for projects that might take on other forms, with a focus on text, and (moving) image.
Film of the Week #77
January 24th - 31st 2024
Shorts 7
Night (2021)
Animation, 16m
The dust of war keeps the eyes sleepless. Night brings peace and sleep to all the people in the broken town. Only the eyes of the mother of the missing child stay resilient. Night has to trick her into sleeping to save her soul.
Director: Ahmad Saleh
Drawing for Better Dreams (2015)
Animation, 4m
By using images drawn by Palestinian children between the ages of 9 and 12, ‘Drawing for Better Dreams’ takes us to the Occupied Territories and into the minds of the kids who live there under siege. By animating the simple crayon drawings, this moving film conjures up the struggles faced by Palestinian children on a daily basis, and demonstrates the power of – and need for – allowing young people to dream.
Directors: May Odeh & Dia' Azzeh
Fatenah (2009)
Animation, 20m
A Palestinian woman’s attempt to seek medical attention while living in Gaza.
Director: Ahmad Habash
Film of the Week #70
November 15th - 22nd 2023
Bank of Targets (2021)
in Short, Documentary
In Memory of Roshdi Sarraj
Documentary 25m
Winner of the Jury’s Special Mention at the 18th Al Ard Film Festival in Sardinia, Bank of Targets documents Israel’s targeting of civilian infrastructure in Gaza in 2021. Through a first-hand account of the bombing of a residential building, Sarraj highlights the efforts of journalists to create a record of war crimes as they unfold.
Director: Roshdi Sarraj
Production: Ain Media
Film of the Week #58
May 25th - June 1st 2022
The Forgotten (2012)
Drama, 22m
Driven from the Golan Heights some 45 years ago, old Mustafa seeks to return to the house he left behind. Guided by a tough young smuggler, he crosses the heavily fortified Israeli border, but his long journey is confounded by the onset of dementia. As a camaraderie between Mustafa and the smuggler takes root, ‘The Forgotten’ confronts us with a simple but deeply distressing question: How can you go home if you can’t remember where home is?
Writer & Director: Ehab Tarabieh
Starring: Shadi Ayoub & Tarik Kopty
Film of the Week #53
April 20th - 27th 2022
Shorts 6
in Short, Drama, Experimental, Documentary
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.
Film of the Week #46
March 2nd - 9th 2022
Shorts 5
in Short, Drama, Experimental
Cyber Palestine (1999)
Dir. Elia Suleiman / 1999 / Experimental / 16 mins
Cyber Palestine is a parable about a modern-day Mary and Joseph, two Palestinian returnees living in Gaza, and their tribulations with the Israeli occupation. The film was commissioned by the Palestinian National Authority’s Bethlehem 2000 Project as part of the millennium commemorations in Bethlehem.
Make a Wish (2005)
Cherien Dabis / 2005 / Drama / 13 mins
A young Palestinian girl will do whatever it takes to buy a birthday cake. Eleven year-old MARIAM begs her mother for the extra money she needs to buy a cake at the local bakery. Her mother begrudgingly relents, but when Mariam arrives at the bakery, she realizes that she still doesn't have enough. Determined to get the cake, she sets out to brave the obstacles and land some cash. What begins as a simple trip to the bakery turns into a journey that depicts not only the subtle tensions of a politically charged environment, but also illustrates the grief that can result from growing up under occupation.
A Boy, a Wall, and a Donkey (2008)
Hany Abu-Assad / 2008 / Experimental / 5 mins
Three young boys want to make a film in a village without cameras. They ride their donkey to the separation wall and are in luck as the place is flooded with surveillance cameras. When an army jeep approaches they wonder if they will finally get their hands on their footage.
Diary of a Male Whore (2001)
Tawfik Abu Wael / 2001 / Drama / 14 mins
Esam, a young Arab war refugee who lives in Tel Aviv, makes his living as a male prostitute. His physical pleasure, which makes him forget his hunger, reminds him constantly of his childhood in his home village. Inspired by the novel For Bread Alone by Mohammad Shukry.
Film of the Week #41
July 28th - August 4th 2021
Shorts 4
in Short, Drama, Experimental
Ismail (2013)
Dir. Nora al-Sharif // 2013 // Drama // 28 Mins
Inspired by a day in the life of the famous and prolific Palestinian painter Ismail Shammout (1930-2006), Ismail depicts the evocative story of a young Palestinian artist struggling to survive and support his parents and young brother after their expulsion to a refugee camp in 1948 by the Israeli forces.
Area C (2018)
Dir. Salah Abu Nimah // 2018 // Drama // 10 mins
In the nearly two-thirds of the West Bank classified as ‘Area C’ under the Oslo Accords, which contains many of the Israeli settlements, Israel exclusively administers the area and severely limits Palestinian development. By contrast, Jewish settlements are allowed to flourish unchecked, and settlers run rampant over their Palestinian neighbors. Young Hussain tries to defend his house so he can stay there with his parents.
A Sketch of Manners (2013)
Dir. Jumana Manna // 2013 // Experimental // 12 mins
Alfred Roch, member of the Palestinian National League, is a politician with a bohemian panache. In 1942, at the height of WWII, he throws what will turn out to be the last masquerade in Palestine.
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.
Maradonna’s Legs (2019)
Firas Khoury // 2019 // Drama // 23 mins
During the 1990 World Cup, two young Palestinian boys are looking for “Maradona’s legs”; the last missing sticker that they need in order to complete their world cup album and win a free Atari.
Film of the Week #33
May 12th - May 19th 2021
Shorts 3
in Short, Experimental, Drama, Documentary, Comedy
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.
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 #16
July 15th - 22nd 2020
Shorts 2
in Short, Drama, Experimental
PFP Film of the Week #16
Read MoreFilm of the Week #10
June 3rd - June 10th 2020
