Cinema Palestina 1

Cinema Palestina (a)
1948 – Creation and Catastrophe
by Andy Trimlett and Ahlam Muhtaseb2017 | Documentary | 87 min

1948: Creation and Catastrophe is the story of the establishment of Israel as seen through the eyes of the people who lived it. This film features first-hand accounts of what took place in Haifa, Jaffa, Dayr Yasin, Acre, Jerusalem, Ramleh, and Lydda from the Israelis and Palestinians who personally fought in and fled from this land. These shocking and dramatic events expose the core of what continues to drive the conflict today, nearly 70 years later.www.youtube.com

30th of March
by Nidal Badarny, docu 55 min. Palestine 2014. V

The Jury decided to award Special Mention to the film as Best Palestinian Film, because it documents a specific anniversary – the 30th March 1976 demonstrations and ensuing massacres as an important turning point and a symbolic depiction of the Palestinian bond to their land, along with their struggle for freedom and dignity.www.youtube.com

33 Days

Jamal Shoorje fictie 90 min. Lebanon 2012
Filmed in Lebanon during the summer of 2006, 33 DAYS follows the reallife stories of four people as Israel’s Second Lebanon War is waged around them: A director working with children who take shelter in a theatre after their homes are destroyed, a journalist for an underground television station struggling to cover the war, an aid worker coordinating emergency relief efforts for thousands of displaced people, and a newsdesk director trying to cope not only with the war, but with her newborn baby. Renowned Palestinian director Mai Masri’s awardwinning documentary is full of compassion and humanity, even as it follows the near devastation of a country and its people. www.youtube.com

Review:
An amazing movie which let us thing of a bright future for the Lebanese cinema. Good direction -amazing actress and actresses-great story and techniques. The story is about the war of 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah , and specially about the village “AYTA l CHAAB” and the people in this village who stayed fighting for 33 days alone armed with faith in Allah and courage. The story of “Em Abbas” played by the amazing Carmen Lebbos who is a fighter who lost her sun and husband in earlier wars . The story of “Youssef ” and ” Mohammed Srour” – two Hezbollah members who are ready to give there life for there village and there country. And Avi the heartless Israeli captain who attacks on “AYTA L CHAAB ” and ready to do every thing to feed his ego .

77 Steps

Mara’ana Menuhin, Ibtisam

77-Steps” 77 Steps documentaire 2010, 56 min. Engels ondertiteld. Trailer en info:  www.youtube.com
The film documents the personal journey of the director who leaves her Arab-Muslim village to live in Tel Aviv. In an attempt to find an apartment in the city, she encounters discrimination and rejection by most landlords because of her Arab origins. She finally finds an apartment and meets her neighbor – Jonathan, a Jewish-Canadian and recent immigrant to Israel. A complicated love story develops.
Documentairemaakster legt eigen zoektocht naar een appartement in Tel Aviv, Israel, vast, en – als ze na veel mislukte pogingen een appartement heeft gevonden, haar liefdesrelatie met Jonathan, haar nieuwe buurman, een joods-Canadeze immigrant en zijn familie, die haar weigert te ontmoeten. Als de Gaza-oorlog uitbreekt, breekt ze met Meretz waarvan ze lid is geworden. Haar relatie met Jonathan komt ook onder druk te staan. Als Jonathans Canadese oom op bezoek komt reist hij met hen door Israel, herinneringen ophalend aan 1948 toen hij meehielp een kibboets op te richten. Ieder heeft zijn eigen herinneringen en dromen voor de toekomst: Nakba, Liefde, Conflicten etc. Na de reis zal niets hetzelfde voor hen zijn.
3000 Nights

van Mai Masri (ook scenario), drama 103 min.1948:

Layal, a young newlywed Palestinian schoolteacher is arrested after being falsely accused and is sentenced to eight years of prison. She is transferred to an Israeli women’s prison, where Palestinian political prisoners are incarcerated with Israeli criminal inmates. The prison director pressures her to spy on the Palestinian inmates. While in prison, Layal gives birth to a baby boy. Against all odds, she manages to find a meaning to her life. As prison conditions deteriorate and the Palestinian prisoners decide to go on strike, Layal is forced to make a choice that will forever change her life. www.youtube.com

Abu Jamil ST.
Beneath deafening bombs and in tunnels on the brink of collapse, we follow four Palestinian tunnel workers burrowing under the Gaza strip. Six feet under the street where Egypt meets the Gaza strip, they laugh while comparing the conflict to a cartoon: “it’s always Jerry who wins”! But this laughter stops when Israel’s bombs shake the earth. It’s December 2008, and Israel’s deadly air strikes, which will destroy almost all of the tunnels transporting supplies from Egypt to Palestine, have begun. When the worst of the bombing stops, the men emerge from the shells of their former homes with new drive: “they destroy one, and another one appears”. Because as long as Israel’s embargo stands, stopping even foreign aid from coming into Palestine, the tunnels remain an important symbol of resistance and a matter of pride. “Some tunnels transport weapons,” acknowledges Abu Sleeman, but for him, it’s just about “bringing back food, so people can survive”. www.youtube.com

After the Sunset

by Elia Ghorbiah, docu 11 min. 2017. 
Producer: Matilde Nørgaard and support Filmlab

Synopsis: “After the Sunset” is a film about the feelings family and relatives are left with after an honor killing.

Aid but no State

by Sabrina Dittus, docu 85 min. Palestine/Germany 2014/2015

Since the Oslo Accords, over $ 24 billion in international aid has gone to Palestine. The biggest donor: the EU. Twenty years on, the situation in Gaza and the West Bank is worse than ever.
The EU – just a payer, no player? Our film investigates development and aid projects in the occupied Palestinian territories and takes a close look at the role of the EU in the Middle East.

Sabrina Dittus is a Berlin-based filmmaker, author and lecturer.  She holds a PhD in philosophy and teaches Film and Media Studies at diverse Universities. Her latest film is on Youth in Gaza (2016), currently she develops a filmic essay on “Being-in-common”.

Ajami
Scandar Copti & Yaron Shani

The film contains five story lines, each of which is presented in a non-chronological fashion. Some events are shown multiple times from varying perspectives. A young Israeli Arab boy, Nasri, who lives in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, narrates the film.
In the first story, Nasri’s neighbor—a teenage boy—is shot to death by a well-known Bedouin clan in a drive-by shooting while working on his car. Nasri explains that the intended target was his older brother Omar, who had previously sold the car to the neighbor. The botched hit was revenge for a loss of one of Bedouin clan members, who was shot and paralyzed by Nasri’s uncle in a dispute. Nasri and his younger sister are sent to Jerusalem, while Omar, his mother, and grandfather stay behind. Fearing for his family’s safety, Omar seeks protection and guidance from Abu Elias, an affluent restaurant owner, and well known and respected member of the Jaffa community. Abu Elias arranges for a three day cease fire, and hires a lawyer to represent Omar in tribal court. During this time, Nasri and his sister return home. At the conclusion of the court session, the judge declares that Omar must pay tens of thousands of dinars—the equivalent of tens of thousands of US dollars—so peace can be restored. Omar is given three weeks to make good on his payment. Omar and his friend Shaata attempt petty crime in order to come up with the finances, but are unsuccessful at bringing in enough money. Omar’s mother attempts to persuade him to escape with the family, but Omar refuses to leave, believing that there is no place to run to.
The second story introduces a young teenaged boy named Malek who lives in the Palestinian territory of Nablus. Malek is illegally employed in Abu Elias’s restaurant, and works out of desperation to make enough money for his ailing mother’s bone marrow transplant surgery. Malek is friends with Omar, who has also become a recent employee at the restaurant. It is also revealed that Omar, a Muslim, is in love with Abu Elias’s daughter Hadir, a Christian. Abu Elias, once discovering the secret couple later in the film by catching them in the surreptitious act of flirtation, does not approve of their relationship, and angrily fires Omar, warning him to stay away from his daughter.
The third story shows a brief, but violent encounter between an older Jewish man and his three young drug dealing Arab neighbors. The dispute begins when the Jewish man complains to the young men that he has not been able to sleep, due to the fact that their bleating sheep keep him up all night. The disagreement soon escalates, and one of the young men mortally stabs the Jewish man. The three young men go into hiding before the police arrive. Amongst the policemen who arrive at the scene is an Israeli officer named Dan, nicknamed Dando by his friends. Viewers learn that Dando’s younger brother Yoni has gone missing during his service in the Israeli Defense Forces. While rumors circulate that Yoni may have run away and became very religious, Dando’s family—mother and father specifically—suspect that he may have been kidnapped or murdered by a Palestinian terrorist organization. Dando—a family man with a wife and kids—has remained strong for his emotionally broken family, as they make attempts at locating his brother. Later in the story, Dando is informed that the army has discovered the remains of what is believed to be a murdered Israeli soldier in the Palestinian territories. It is soon thereafter confirmed that the remains are Yoni’s, and Dando—emotionally traumatized—vows to find the murderer and bring him to justice.
In the fourth story, viewers learn of the character Binj (who is played by co-director Scandar Copti) an eccentric cook who works in Abu Elias’s restaurant. He is also close friends with Omar, Shaata and Malek. Binj is in love with a Jewish girl from Tel Aviv, and is thinking of moving in with her, much to the dismay of his group of friends. It is revealed that Binj’s brother was one of the three involved in the stabbing of the Jewish man in Jaffa. Both Binj and his father are taken in and interrogated by the police. After his release, Binj reluctantly agrees to accept a great deal of drugs that belongs to his brother who is still on the run. Early one morning, after a social gathering in his house, Binj awakes Malek so he won’t be late to the restaurant’s opening and hides in his presence the brick of drugs. Just when Malek is leaving he sees three Hebrew speaking men enter Binj’s house. When Binj is found dead in his apartment not long afterward, Malek and Omar initially suspect that he was murdered by a group of Israeli drug dealers. It is later revealed that those three men were actually policemen who came to search Binj’s house and intimidate him into revealing his brother’s location. Having to leave after he told them nothing the police promises Binj to return. Binj, tired from the situation and annoyed by the ongoing harresment of the police, discarded the majority of the drugs, put sugar powder inside packages mimicking drug bricks and hid them around the house in an attempt to mock the police, should they ever return. Binj then proceeds to snort the remainder of drugs he did not discard and accidentally dies of a drug overdose. All of this is unbeknownst to Malek and Omar who, after Binj’s death, takes one of the hidden mock-drug packages and, thinking it is the drugs, decides to sell it to a drug dealer in an attempt to pay off their respective debts. Abu Elias learns of their plans and tips off the police, thinking Omar will be caught, thus ending the relationship between Omar and his daughter. Initially, Abu Elias fires Malek after learning of his involvement with drugs, but after Malek’s pleading and after learning that Omar will not go alone to the exchange he changes his mind, and instructs Malek to meet the dealers with Omar, but warns him not to carry the drugs on his person. He assures Malek that once Omar is taken into custody by the police, Malek can return to the restaurant and that his sick mother will be taken care of. Like Omar and Malek however, Abu Elias does not realize that the drugs are fake.
The fifth story shows the encounter between Omar, Malek, and the drug dealers. Toward the beginning of the film, viewers are shown the scene, and initially led to believe that Malek was shot to death by the drug dealers, once they discovered the drugs were fake. It is revealed later however, that the dealers were actually policemen executing a sting operation. It is also revealed that Omar’s younger brother Nasri insisted on accompanying Omar and Malek to the meeting, afraid that something bad would happen to his brother. Upon arrival, Omar tells Nasri to stay in the car, and at Malek’s urging, leaves his gun behind as well. At the meeting, the police tackle and beat Omar and Malek after they discover the drugs are fake. Dando, who is a part of the sting, sees Malek with the pocket watch he planned to give Abu Elias as a present. Dando believes that the watch belonged to Yoni and in a fit of rage beats Malek and aims his gun at him with the intent to murder him. However Nasri, who hadn’t stayed in the car as ordered, sees the gun pointed at Malek, and shoots Dando with Omar’s gun. He is then shot and killed by another officer. The film ends with Omar escaping down an alleyway and getting back to the car, only to discover that Nasri is missing.
trailer:“https://www.youtube.com

Al Amari (After the rain)

In the refugee camp of Al Amari located on the outskirts of Ramallah, the quality of living has dwindled since the beginning of the second Intifada – insecurity, unemployment, inoperative infrastructures… Alone with a small digital camera and no translator, the filmmaker faces considerable difficulty comprehending this microcosm of the Palestinian refugee experience. Before long, the filmmaker meets up with Darwish Abu Alish, an out of work Palestinian filmmaker who becomes guide, translator, and subject as the film explores the social, political, and economic innerworkings of the refugee camp.

Al Dhakira al Khasba (Fertile Memory)

Khleifi, Michel 1980 docudramaThe first full length film to be shot within the disputed Palestinian West Bank “Green Line,” FERTILE MEMORY is the feature debut of Michel Khleifi, acclaimed director of the Cannes Film Festival triumph, WEDDING IN GALILEE. 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. www.youtube.com

Al Helm: Martin Luther King in Palestine

CONNIE FIELD USA, 2013, 96 minutes, digital, Color,

www.clarityfilms.org/mlk/” official site
In Person: Director/Producer Connie Field (guest appearances are subject to change)
In March 2011, a Christian gospel choir and American academic and playwright Dr. Clayborne Carson travelled to the Holy Land to tour the West Bank with a Palestinian production of a play about the too-short life and tumultuous times of pastor, activist, humanitarian, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. The resulting cultural exchange, creatively exciting, often emotionally charged, and not without tension or tragedy, gives each group a greater understanding of the other and unites them in the common and inspiring bond of artistic endeavor. Amongst the most popular works at the recent, prestigious Vancouver International Film Festival, the new film from Connie Field, director of The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter and Have You Heard From Johannesburg, Al Helm—Arabic for “the dream” and an apt metaphor for both Dr. King’s work and the goals to which this troupe aspire—is a transformative experience.—Eddie Cockrell
In English, Arabic, and Hebrew with English subtitles. www.youtube.com
Al Quds, My City

Feature Documentary
 Liana Badr Category: Cinema
Year: 2008
Status: Closed

Al Quds, My City is a feature length documentary about three Palestinian women in East Jerusalem, who face the loss of their homes after losing their identity papers. The women’s lives reflect their individual sense of belonging, their love for Jerusalem and the struggle to maintain their identity.

Al-Jiser
Mara’ana Menuhin, Ibtisam

Al-Jiser (2004) A look into the lives of residents of ” Al-Jiser-Zarka village in Israel who face poverty and discrimination. The film focuses on the struggle of a group of young single women who are determined to bring social change to their village. www.youtube.com

All that remains

Palestinian Arab Bedouins once peopled the entire Naqab (Negev) Desert, a region which accounts for 60% of historic Palestine. With the creation of Israel in 1948, the majority of these Palestinians were uprooted. Those who remain are either being forcibly concentrated within one of seven designated townships or, if they refuse to abandon their lifestyle and economy, end up living in one of 46 “unrecognized villages” lacking water, electricity, schools, roads or medical services. Nada El Yassir’s powerful documentary explores the struggle of these Bedouins of the Naqab against Israeli policies that aim to strip them of their land and their way of life.

 

Almost Friends

2014, 60 minutes by Director: Nitzan Ofir & Barak Heymann

Only 67 kilometers separate Lod and Tlamim, but the residents are a world apart, divided by vast national, cultural, and ideological differences. Through an education and technology school program aimed at bridging gaps in Israeli society, sixth grade students from a secular school in the impoverished city of Lod and a religious school in the settlement of Tlamim are paired as online pen pals. Samar, an Arab girl from Lod and Linor, a settler who lived in Gush Katif, represent the extremes of these differences. Still, a spark is ignited in their online relationship and a friendship is formed. But when the two girls have the opportunity to meet, their families enter into a profound and complex experience. www.youtube.com

Alone (Wahdon)

11 minutes – 2012 – France/Lebanon 
ISAN N° 0000-0003-7B8E-0000-V-0000-0000-I
At the border of a forest, a Lebanese poet gets a breath of fresh air on his terrace, as every evening. He watches four young people disappearing into the forest and returning in the early hours …
«Wahdon draws its inspiration from two true stories: one is from the poem by the Lebanese writer Talal Haidar, which was written immediately after the failure of a Palestinian military operation. The other is based on the story of a French woman, Francoise Kesteman, who was an activist for the Palestinian cause. I met her in the early 80’s. She was killed at sea during a military operation against the Israeli army. » Norma Marcos
Norma Marcos 
French filmmaker from Palestinian background, Norma Marcos is also a writer and screenwriter. Among other works, she has directed three acclaimed documentaries: “Fragments of a Lost Palestine” (2010), “Waiting for Ben Gourion” (2006) and “The Veiled Hope” (1993), which were selected at a number of prestigious festivals around the world (Rotterdam, Rome, Montréal, San Francisco, etc…). She’s currently working on a feature film screenplay and is about to publish her first book. 

Festivals o.a. International Mediterranean Film Festival in Tetouan (Morocco, ) 
Cinema Days of Beirut (Lebanon), Chicago Palestine Festival, Boston Palestine Film Festival 
Baghdad international Film Festival – Arab Woman Competition 
Festival “Du Grain à démoudre” vimeo.com

Amani (Dream)

In this understated short, Habash allows children talk about their dreams some claim not to dream, others speak disarmingly cheerfully of the violent images that come to them in their sleep, while still more appear to find in sleep a world of tranquility and beauty scarcely imaginable in their waking surrounds of the occupied West Bank in the Intifada.

Ambulance

(78 min) van Mohamed Jabaly, docu 78 min. Noorwegen / Palestina 2016 V
Overal glas, ramen die uit hun sponningen zijn gesprongen, geschreeuw. Vanaf de eerst seconde zit de kijker midden in de beangstigende wereld van filmmaker Mohamed Jabaly. Zijn straat in een wijk van Gaza is zojuist gebombardeerd door Israël. In paniek vraagt zijn familie zich af welk huis geraakt is. De overburen, leert een blik uit het raam. Alleen een enorme berg stof en stenen is nog over. Jabaly maakte een rauw, persoonlijk verslag van de 51 dagen waarin ‘zijn’ stad en ‘zijn’ mensen onder vuur lagen. Hij rijdt al die dagen mee met een ambulance en klampt zich, zo zegt hij zelf in de film, vast aan de camera om zijn angst te bedwingen. De heroische bestuurder van de ambulance, die een haat-liefde verhouding met de camera en regisseur ontwikkelt, is een baken van rust te midden van de chaos. telkens weer scheuren ze recht het centrum van de oorlog in. Daar moeten ze de gewonden oppikken, ondanks het risico dat ze zelf slachtoffer worden van een vervolgbombardement. Hectisch handheld materiaal wordt afgewisseld met meer reflectieve momenten, van Jabaly die vanaf zijn dak de stad overziet, of van de broeders die het bloed van de ambulance wegwassen. www.youtube.com

Ameer Got His Gun

Director: Naomi Levari Israel 2011 58 minutes

Ameer is a Muslim Arab about to enlist in to the Israeli army. He believes this is a path towards equality and belonging in the Jewish state. On his journey, he carefully navigates the thin line between Jewish and Arab societies in Israel.

Co-presented by: Givat Haviva, Ameinu, and NIF New Generations. www.youtube.com
194, Us children of the camp

by Samer Salameh, documentaire 88 min. Syrië, Libanon 2017. Arabic, Engl. ST

Trailer. www.youtube.com
Interview with director: www.youtube.com

Samer grew up in Syria in the largest Palestinian refugee camp in the Middle East. In 2011, he is forced to join the Palestine Liberation Army in Syria, while the revolution explodes in Damascus. He starts filming and his friends also start recording all the pivotal moments of their day-to-day lives. What emerges little by little from a personal story, that of the film director, in the form of a haphazard diary, is the story of a group of friends, a neighbourhood, and a stateless people. Over the images taken on the fly in the army, overjoyed scenes of happy moments, testimonies of anger in the tumult of the demonstrations, wandering over arid land, in search of a non-existent way out, the film moves towards an ineluctable outcome. The story is intimate at first and naturally shifts to a more collective form as the fighting, departures and losses combine with the ruins of the Yarmouk district. War appears in all its absurdity, while these young people (protagonists of The Shebabs of Yarmouk, awarded at VdR 2013), who have lived in this country as foreigners, now suffer its murderous explosion. Madeline Robert

Ambience

by Wisam Al Jafari, fiction? 15 min. Palestine 2018

Two young people try to record music inside the camp for a competition. If they succeed, they have the chance to make a music album. Because of the chaos and problems in the camp, things go wrong at first. Finally, the two come up with the idea of recording the sounds of the camp instead – and turning them into music…

 

And an Image Was Born

by Firas Khoury, fiction 9 min. Palestine 2018. Arabic with English subtitles

The two-year old Palestinian boy Razi loves to hear the story of “The Monster”. The story is an allegory of the Palestinian problem, but he is too young to comprehend the political association – he just wants to imagine and live through its details over and over again. The narrator has his own film in his head…

Another Point of View

by Bilal Alkhatib, fiction of docu? 19 min, Palestine 2018. Arabic with English subtitles

The film tells the story of Fadel and Najeeba. They live in a Palestinian village. Their relationship is exceptional. Fadel has a so-called mental illness and Najeeba sees the reality her own way, not as a response to her brother’s case but because she sees life and things in a simple way – which leads to people in the village making fun of them. www.youtube.com

The Apollo of Gaza

by Nicolas Wadimoff, documentary (film/animation) 78 min, Switzerland/Canada 2018, Arabic, French, English, Hebrew with English subtitles.

Trailer: www.youtube.com

In 2013, an ancient statue of Apollo was found in the waters off Gaza – before disappearing under mysterious circumstances. Is it the work of forgers, or a gift from the gods to a Palestinian people desperately in need of hope? Soon the rumours start to swirl, while behind the scenes local and international players start jostling – some driven by historical preservation and others by purely commercial interests.
Co-produced by Akka Films and the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), The Apollo of Gaza, directed by Swiss filmmaker Nicolas Wadimoff, tries to uncover the secrets behind this stunning archaeological discovery. Filmed in Gaza and Jerusalem, the film plays out like a mystery – one full of unexpected plot twists, as Wadimoff tracks down those who saw the priceless statue or who have heard stories about it. Is it the work of forgers, or a gift from the gods to Palestinians desperately in need of hope? There are a lot of unknowns, but one thing is sure: the Apollo of Gaza soon becomes an object of speculation and greed, its very existence feeding the wildest rumours, and blurring the line between truth and lie, myth and reality.
Beyond the local political rivalries and international concerns, The Apollo of Gaza is an engaging reflection on the passage of time and the cycles of history. It’s a history that has seen the birth, growth, and death of great civilizations, in a part of the world marked by the endless Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where the besieged Gaza strip continues to pay a heavy price.

Area C

by Salah Abu Nimah, docu 10 min. Palestine 2014, Arabic with English subtitles

In the West Bank and the classified Area C, which is surrounded by Israeli settlements, young Hussain is trying to defend his house from the settlers so he can stay there with his parents. www.aljazeera.com

1948 – Amreeka
National Geographic Film, 2010, DVD, 96 minutes, 2010, English.

The quintessential immigrant tale, journey with Muna “a single mother from Palestine“ who travels with her son Fadi to begin a new start in America. Set to the backdrop of the Iraq war, they face the complexities and tribulations of a new life in this heartwarming drama. Official Selection at Sundance Dramatic Competition, Directors Fortnight. Winner- Pipresci Prize at Cannes 2009. www.youtube.com

Anabasis, The
The Anabasis of May and Fusaku Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and 27 Years Without Images

Prior to embarking on a 27 year underground odyssey in the Middle East with the Japanese Red Army (JRA), filmmaker Masao Adachi (Red Army/PFLP Declaration of World War, 1971) proposed a “landscape theory”, wherein film imageries of scenery and landscape were to represent prevailing systems of political power. Based in Lebanon from the early 1970s, Adachi grew close to JRA founder Fusaku Shigenobu, whose daughter May was born at around this time, growing up in hiding with a mother on the run. May was only able to reveal her identity at the age of 27, following her mother’s capture in 2000. Eric Baudelaire’s film, shot in Super 8 and in the spirit of Adachi’s “landscape theory”, sees him conducting a series of visual and textual exchanges with May Shigenobu and Masao Adachi (living in Tokyo and unable to return to Beirut since his own capture). The resulting work recounts these astonishing personal stories while offering an aesthetically distinctive meditation on the meeting of image, ideology, and memory.

And yet my mask is powerful

Basel Abbas – Ruanne Abou-Rahme multi-media project
Single screen and 5-channel video projection, 2-channel sound + subwoofer, tools, bricks, boards (2016)5-channel video projection, 2-channel sound + subwoofer, tools, bricks, boards
First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful it pumps my blood with power
Neolithic masks taken from the West Bank and surrounding areas, and stored in private collections are hacked and 3D-printed. Copies circulate in Palestine, eerily akin to a black ski mask. A group of youth wear them at the site of a destroyed Palestinian village in Israel. Becoming other, becoming anonymous, in this accidental moment of ritual and myth. Initiating a series of trips to possess and almost be possessed by these strangely living sites of erasure and wreckage. Only now, returning to the site of destruction as the very site from which to cast a new projection that palpably evokes the potential of an unrealised time, not bound by the here and now or there and then. A parallel time that is not occupied, a virtual time that is not ‘our’ time.
And yet my mask is powerful confronts the apocalyptic imaginary and violence that dominates our contemporary moment, an apocalyptic vision that seems to clog up even the pores in our bodies. Taking Adrienne Rich’s poem ‘Diving into the wreck’ as the beginnings of a script, And yet my mask is powerful asks what happens to people/ place/ things/ materials when a living fabric is destroyed. The project uses the trips taken by young Palestinians to sites of destroyed villages as an avatar to think about the possibility of using the site of wreckage as the very material from which to trace the faint contours of another possible time. Materials are taken from the sites, plants, flowers, stones, bits of human residue. Other objects and things, particularly tools, are cast into the work and projected back into the sites. 
In its intersections between performativity and ritual, body and artifact, thingness and virtuality And yet my mask is powerful begins to splice together a counter-mythology to the dominant mythologies of the present. A counter-mythology that holds on to our imaginative space as the last terrain to be occupied. The layers of images, texts, sound and things perform and activate various forms of returns, flashforwards and deja vu unfolding in this gesture a dense story of erasures and reappearances, dispossession and resistance, the archaic resonating in the contemporary.
vimeo.com

Animation collection
Baghdad-born Palestinian, Habash, who now resides in Ramallah, carves out new artistic space in his series of short digital animations.
Another World in Your Eyes

by Valerie Malek, docu 60 min, France/Jordan 2017 V

Xena is a young Jordanian architect who designed a renovation project for the largest palestinian refugee camp in Jordan. Beyond politics, it calls for another consciousness, more ethical,. Gradually she opens me the doors of her muslim society. A dialogue of images establishes a relation between her and me, the oriental woman and the occidental one.
Valerie Malek is a French Filmmaker living in Paris. Member of the Society of Authors. “Another world in your eyes” is her fourth documentary feature film. She also works as a visual artist and is the author of many experimental films and documentaries. She has directed a video workshop for young Arabs in Jordan, which has produced many short films selected by international festivals.

Apart
Sami Shehade docu 2013 20 min.

An accordion player who left Gaza in 1995 to study music in the West Bank and was not allowed to return finds it difficult to be apart from his family during the Israeli attack on Gaza in 2012.

Apples of the Golan
Arabisch en Hebreeuws gesproken met Engelse ondertiteling. Vóór 1967 was de Golanhoogte Syrisch grondgebied. Er lagen 139 dorpen. Sinds de Zesdaagse Oorlog wordt het gebied bezet door Israël. 130.000 Arabieren werden er voorgoed verdreven. Deze film, waarvan het maken vijf jaar in beslag nam, gaat over het leven van de inwoners van Majdal Shams, één van de vijf overgebleven dorpen. Over appels, muziek en liefde. Over verraad en over de weinig hoopvolle situatie van dit volk dat wordt verscheurd tussen natie en grondgebied, in Israël hun huis, Syrië hun thuis. ‘Twopair Films’ is een tweepersoons documentair productiebedrijf gevestigd in het westen van Ierland. Jill Beardsworth is editor en regisseur. Keith Walsh is editor, cameraman en regisseur. Voor een trailer. www.youtube.com
Aqabt Jaber: Peace without returen?

The right to return of the Palestinian refugees, is at the heart of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, and will determine the future of the Middle East. Having made the earlier film Aqabat Jaber, Passingthrough (1987) just before the first Intifada, director Eyal Sivan returns to this refugee camp the day after the evacuation of the region by the Israeli army. A few kilometres from Jericho and built 50 years ago, AqabatJaber is today a refugee camp under Palestinian control. Its 3,000 inhabitants have not, however, seen their status change. According to the peace treaty, they are still refugees and cannot go back to the villages from which their parents fled. Can peace between Israel and Palestine be possible without the return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland, which has now become Israel? Does the return, either physical or symbolic, of people that suffered an injustice in 1948 when the state of Israel was created have to take place? This analogical film tells the story of the Palestinian refugees who, like all refugees, are the deported populations and displaced persons, and are the centre of the great conflicts of our time. www.youtube.com

Arab Idol Winner
Hany Abu-Assad docu drama nog in productie

Oscar-nominated Omar director making film based on life of Arab Idol winner Mohammed Assaf
After conquering the television, Arab Idol winner Mohammed Assaf is set to become a hero on the big screen, with the Palestinian’s remarkable story being made into a feature film by an Oscar-nominated director.
A trailer for the movie was unveiled on Sunday, March 23, on broadcaster MBC’s nightly entertainment show ET Bil Arabi.
The film, shot in Jordan, is directed by Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad, whose 2005 filmParadise Now and 2013’s Omar were nominated for Academy Awards.
Judging by the 30 second teaser trailer, the untitled film is set to tug at the heartstrings, with scenes showing a young Assad singing on a makeshift stage in his Gaza neighbourhood.
This is followed by a section in which his parent’s refuse to give him their blessing to pursue his musical dream by becoming a wedding singer.
Then we switch to a slightly older Assad, by this time a popular and in-demand singer in Gaza, as he negotiates a hard bargain with a concert promoter.
The trailer didn’t show any scenes of his struggle to compete in Arab Idol in 2013 or his triumph on the show no doubt to fuel rumours on who will play the judges, particularly the Egyptian starlet Nancy Ajram and fiery Emirati diva Ahlam.
Representatives from MBC and Mohammed Assaf were not available for comment. The film’s title and release date has yet to be announced. www.youtube.com

Arab Labor - Season 3

Director: Shay Kapun Fiction Israel 2012 48 minutes

The wildly popular, irreverent and acclaimed series by author Sayed Kashua, is back with a third hilariously entertaining season. Tune in for Amjad and his family’s adventures as they make constant efforts to fit in after relocating from their Arab village to the heart of Jerusalem. www.youtube.com

Arab Movie

Eyal Sagui Bizawe en Sara Tsifroni, documentaire / 2015 / 60 minuten

Volgens zijn zoon Assi wilde zelfs de bekende Israëlische staatsman Moshe Dayan niet gestoord worden tijdens de wekelijkse, Arabische film op vrijdagmiddag op de Israëlische televisie. Zo populair was die intens dramatische en emotionele film. Hele families verzamelden zich ervoor om de televisie: Israëlische arabieren voor wie Arabisch de omgangstaal was, Sefardische Joden die weemoedig aan hun land van oorsprong dachten en ook veel Ashkenazische Joden. Het werd een ritueel waar mensen nog steeds nostalgisch over praten.
Regisseur Eyal Sagui Bizawe, zelf van Egyptisch/Joodse komaf, analyseert  samen met Sara Tsifroni de liefde voor die Arabische film in Arabic Movie (Seret Aravi). Hij laat bijvoorbeeld familieleden aan het woord met heldere herinneringen aan moederland Egypte. In een tijd dat Israël en Egypte nog gezworen vijanden waren, aanbaden kijkers aan twee kanten van de grens dezelfde Arabische helden op het witte doek.

Al Helm: Arabani

Director: Adi Adwan Israel 2013 Fiction 82 minutes ArabicHebr

Arabani isn’t just the auspicious debut feature of a new talent in writer-director Adi Adwan—it’s also the first feature film ever made  by an Israeli Druze filmmaker. Newly divorced from his Jewish wife, Yosef (Eyad Sheety) returns to his hometown, the Druze village of Sumaka. While eventually mending bridges with his mother (Zuhaira Sabbagh), the community as a whole gives a cold-shoulder response to Yosef and his mixed-race teenaged children, daughter Smadar (Daniella Nidam) and adolescent son Eli (Tom Kelrich), who face ostracism, misunderstanding, and intimidation. Deploying an understated, nuanced style, Adwan slowly, confidently unspools his story, detailing the slow erosion of social and emotional barriers and budding of young romance. Adwan’s intimate knowledge of his people’s way of life is evident in every precise domestic detail which, in an accumulation of small moments, builds to make a film of surprising emotional impact.
 Themes: Narrative, Family, Drama
Four songs for Palestine (Arba'a Aghani Li Filasteen)

dir. Nada El-Yassir, Fiction, 13’, Beta SP (Palestine, 2001).

Every day is a bad-news day in a tiny place in this world called Palestine. Death has become very much part of daily life on the West Bank and Gaza. A Palestinian woman goes through the daily routines of eating, drinking, and feeding her son while the news of the conflict permeates her mundane chores.

Arna's children

Arna Mer Khamis was a legendary Israeli activist against the occupation. Born Jewish, she married a Palestinian and spent her life campaigning for human rights. In the Jenin refugee camp, Arna opened a theatre where, with her son Juliano, she taught children to express themselves through art. When Arna died of cancer in 1995, the theater ultimately did not survive. Five years later, Juliano, one of the region’s leading actors, returns to discover what happened to ‘Arna’s Children.’ Shifting in time, his film juxtaposes the young boys with the militants and martyrs they become, exposing the horror of young lives trapped by the circumstances of Israeli occupation. Winner: Best Documentary Feature – Tribeca Film Festival, 2004. Winner: Best First Documentary Feature ¬– Canadian International Documentary Festival, 2004. www.youtube.com

Around

A journey with four young filmmakers in a blue Fiat Uno as they make their way from Jenin to Ramallah to have their favourite pizza… Broadcast as part of Channel 4’s “Three Minute Wonder” series, Around documents much more than just a journey to a pizza restaurant, it follows a trip around or through more than 500 Israeli checkpoints, taking 12 hours, and necessitating going “around” – in doing so discovering hidden stories and curious people.

 

Aarson continues, the

On August 21st 1969 a fire broke out in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem. The fire did untold damage and much controversy surrounds the motivation of the arsonist who caused it as well as the efforts of Israeli authorities to extinguish it. Hamdan’s documentary discusses the most important activities involved in the subsequent restoration of the mosque and the rescue and protection of its valuable manuscripts. Through eyewitness accounts, the historical importance of the mosque and Israel’s reaction to the fire of 1969 is explored.

Art and Apathy

Jessica Habie
“Art and Apathy” features several of Israel and Palestines most respected artists, as well as a diverse range of underground voices.
“Art and Apathy” is a film project that documents the complexity of life in Israel and Palestine as experienced by local artists. Despite the unending cycles of ideological and physical violence propagated by the mainstream media and politicians, the artists featured in our films choose to produce work that provokes dialogue. Through their eyes our film examines several political and social elements that are often oversimplified in international media. Defining terms such as the green line, the right to return, Palestine 48, Intifada, Zionism and other key concepts, we present audiences with the political ideologies and historic identities that structure life in the Middle East. Focusing on artists who’s work inspire alternative persepctives, we venture into intimate spaces and access visionary voices who have transcended the political rhetoric.

Art in Ramallah

by Raja Kanaan, docu 6 min. 2017.
Producer:

Oline Paludan Jørgensen and support Filmlab
An insight into an artist’s life and how he uses the walls and ruins of his city to express himself artistically.

Arthur Balfour and me

Director: Charlotte Cornic UK 2007 docu 11 min.

What links Arthur J Balfour, the British Politician born in 1848 on a sumptuous family estate in East Lothian and Fatima, a young Palestinian woman, born in 1971 in a refugee camp in Lebanon and now seeking asylum in Glasgow? From the narrow alley ways of a refugee camp in Lebanon to the beautiful farming landscape of East Lothian in Scotland, ‘Arthur Balfour and Me’ is a visual and emotional journey through history and the present, a personal story about how one politician’s actions continue to affect the life of a young woman from the Middle East.

online:
www.cultureunplugged.com

'Arus el Jaleel (Bride of Galilee)
78 year old Fatma Hawari was a recently engaged young woman in 1948, when her village was bombed by Zionist forces during the Nakba. Found buried beneath the rubble with her lower body paralyzed, she sent her fiancé away and remained alone in a wheel chair, living in what became Israel. Every once in a while, she would take out the wedding dress she never wore. Then, over ten years ago, a man arrived in the village and asked for her forgiveness he was the pilot who had bombed her house. Unable to forgive, she sent him away, later to learn that he was Abe Nathan, better known as an Israeli peace activist. Years later, told by Israel that she is ineligible for war casualty compensation, as only “Arabs” could have caused her injuries, Fatma decides to trace Nathan, and ask him to confirm in writing that he had indeed bombed her home and family. Basel Tannous worked for over four years to gain the trust of Fatma and her family in the making of this often painful and profoundly moving account of the fateful encounters between two individuals, and their consequences. In doing so he has produced a unique and intimate portrait of an individual as well as of the enduring conflict itself.
As the poet said

An evocative and lyrical paean to the life and times of late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, this thoughtful film sees director Nasri Hajjaj (Shadow of Absence) taking us on a journey through Darwish’s life. He tours the cities and towns the poet lived in, meeting contemporaries, writers and lovers of his work while overlaying this mosaic of memories and reflections with readings of Darwish’s works throughout. This heartwarming tribute is a fitting epitaph to a man whose words and dreams have inspired generations.

Ashes

Rima Essa 2001 docu 35 min.

Ashes is one of the very few documentaries about the Nakba : not an historical account, although there are many stock shots from the period, but a difficult and moving confrontation between a mother and a daughter. The mother who was chased from her village at the age of two, managed to live in Israël, and to transmit her sense of Palestinian and personal identity to her daughter – although she herself became, in the process, an « Israeli ». The daughter who wants more…

Atash

Tawfik Abu Wael 109 min – Drama Israel 2004

A family of five, their two goats and donkey live in the middle of nowhere far from their village home. They earn meager living by producing & selling charcoal, made from the surrounding trees. The father and son are the only ones who ever return to their native village. The Mother & two daughters have not left this place since the day they abandoned home, 10 years ago. One day the father decides to provide running water for the family by illegally diverting water onto their land. The three women recoil from the idea but the teenage son obeys submissively anything to be allowed to continue attending school. The water surging through the pipe parallels the surging resentment the family feels towards the father. He brought them to this place against their will and they know the reason they left their home is also the reason they can never return, but the newly free-flowing water on their land re-awakens the instinctive desire for freedom they have been repressing all these years. www.youtube.com

The Attack (2012)
Libanon / Frankrijk / Qatar / België
 Drama
102 minuten
Ziad Doueiri
met Ali Suliman, Evgenia Dodena en Reymond Amsalem
Amin Jaafari is een Israëlisch-Palestijnse chirurg die volledig opgenomen is in de Israëlische maatschappij in Tel Aviv. Hij heeft een liefhebbende vrouw, een bloeiende carrière en vele Joodse vrienden. Dan veroorzaakt een zelfmoordaanslag in een restaurant 19 doden en de Israëlische politie vertelt hem dat zijn vrouw – die ook omkwam in de explosie – de verantwoordelijke was. Amin verwerpt deze beschuldigingen ten stelligste maar zijn overtuiging wankelt wanneer hij postuum een brief van Sihem ontvangt waarin ze haar rol in het bloedbad bevestigt. Amin zal de relatieve veiligheid van zijn geadopteerd vaderland verlaten en in de Palestijnse gebieden op zoek gaan naar de extremisten die haar volgens hem gerecruteerd hebben. www.youtube.com
Attente

Masharawi, Rashid – 90 min – Drama – 10 May 2006 (France)

Before leaving to settle abroad, Ahmad accepts one last job. He must audition actors for the new National Palestinian Theatre. On the road with interviewer Bissan and her cameraman Loumir, Ahmad goes in search of talent in the numerous refugee camps of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Hopefully for the last time, Ahmad experiences the insurmountable difficulties of life in Palestine: harassing searches at check points and borders, barricades, constant tension. He realizes the destiny of all waiting refugees is much the same as his own. He ends up guiding the auditioning actors into dramatizing what best embodies their destiny. But with the chance to catch his plane at risk, Ahmad could see the opportunity for his long-awaited exile slip away. www.youtube.com

Ave Maria

Basil Khalil. Komedie/drama, 14 min.
A Jewish family invades the calm of a West Bank convent. Tragedy turns into comedy, when the family and the nuns seek to end the standoff. A clever comedy about place, people and destiny. www.youtube.com

Avenge but one of my eyes (Nekam Achat)
Avenge But One of My Two Eyes van Avi Mograbi. Documentaire. Israel Frankrijk. 2006. 104 min. SRD Dolby Digital. Joodse Vredesactivist legt de werkelijkheid vast met camera in de hand. Op het hoogtepunt van de tweede Intifada moeten de Palestijnen nog elke dag de vernederingen van het Israëlische leger ondergaan. Boeren mogen hun velden niet bewerken, kinderen worden urenlang in een checkpoint vastgehouden als ze uit school teruggaan naar huis, een oude vrouw mag niet op bezoek bij haar dochter. De Palestijnen zijn moegetergd en net als de Joden tegenover de Romeinen of Samson tegen de Filistijnen schreeuwen ze hun woede en onmacht uit. Filmisch niet interessant, verbijsterende beelden over een Israëlische band die zingt met Samsons’woorden ”Laat mij wraak nemen voor een van beide ogen.” 100 minuten, documentaire / home video ,IMDb Frankrijk / Israel. Van de mythen van Samson en Massada, leren de jongere Israëlische generaties dat de dood boven overheersing te verkiezen is. Heden, de tweede intifada is groeiende, worden de Palestijnen constant vernederd door het Israëlisch leger. Boeren worden weerhouden van het ploegen van hun gebieden en kinderen worden op hun beurt op de weg terug van school uren lang vastgehouden bij controleposten, zelfs een oude vrouw kan niet naar huis teruggaan. Uitgeput, laten deze mensen hun wanhoop en woede horen net zoals de Joden met de Romeinen of Samson met Philistines. De Israëlische filmmaker Avi Mograbi gelooft nog in de macht van dialoog, tussen deze onmachtige Palestijnen en het Israëlische leger.Vertoond bij Movies that Matter. www.youtube.com
Ayny – My Second Eye

by Ahmad Saleh, Germany, Palestine, Jordan, 2016, 11 min.

Te midden van een verwoestende oorlog, probeert een moeder haar zoons te beschermen. De jongens gaan echter dagelijks de straat op om rondslingerend schroot te verzamelen tegen betaling, om zo hun droom om muziek te spelen te kunnen waarmaken. Al snel ontdekken ze dat de angst van hun moeder terecht was.
Trailer: www.youtube.com
Amidst a devastating war a mother tries to protect her sons. But the boys go on the streets on a daily basis to gather scrap metal to sell, so thay can realise their dream of making music.
Soon they discover that their mothers fears were real.

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