Palestinian Cinema Days Around The World unveils second edition

Ramallah-based Palestinian film organization Filmlab Palestine unveiled the second edition of its ‘Palestian Cinema Days Around The World’ initiative this weekend, consisting of 253 screenings of eight Palestinian films in 44 countries and more than 150 cities.

The line-up includes Julia Bacha’s 2017 documentary Naila and the Rebellion, charting the journey of Palestinian rights activist Naila Ayesh against the backdrop of the First Intifada in the late 1980s; Khaled Jarrar’s 2013 Chicago Best Doc winner Infiltratorsfollowing Palestinians navigating Israeli checkpoints, and that of Abdallah Al Khatib Little Palestine, Diary of a Siegewhich chronicled the siege of the Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus during the Syrian war, with most of its 160,000 residents fleeing.

Other titles include the paper by Michael Winterbottom and Mohammad Sawwaf Eleven days in Mayto commemorate 67 children killed in eleven days in an earlier flare-up of conflict in May 2021; The work of Carol Mansour from 2023 Aida returnsin which the Lebanese-Canadian-Palestinian director tries to return her mother’s ashes to her birthplace Yafa (Jaffa) which is now in Israeland Amer Shomali and Paul Cowan’s 2014 animated documentary The wanted 18 about a Palestinian village’s attempts to set up its own diary, which was subsequently deemed a security threat by Israel.

The initiative also shows older titles, Resistance – Why by Christian Ghazi, with interviews in 1970 with politician and Men in the sun And Return to Haifa author Ghassan Kanafani, Syrian intellectual Sadiq Jalal El-Azm and PLO figure Nabil Shaath, as well as Michel Khleifi’s 1984 document Maloul celebrates its destruction about the former residents of a Palestinian village destroyed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

The global event replaces the organization’s Palestine Cinema Days, which typically take place in October in Ramallah and Bethlehem and other locations in the West Bank.

The festival and industry event was canceled last year in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack on southern Israel, which killed more than 1,100 people and resulted in the hostage-taking of 253 people, one of whom is believed that at least 60 are still alive. and in captivity in Gaza.

Since October 7, an Israeli military operation on Palestinian territory aimed at freeing the hostages and rooting out Hamas has killed more than 43,000 people and injured more than 100,000, according to the Hamas-led Gaza Health Authority.

Figures released this week by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) show that 23,000 of the dead were children, women and the elderly, while 16,735 were men. About 10,000 missing people are believed to be dead under the rubble.

OCHA estimates that 91% of its 2.1 million residents face severe food insecurity, with the situation set to worsen following Israel’s decision to ban the activities of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees. (UNRWA)which forms the backbone of aid in Gaza.

“More than a year has passed and the devastating war against Gaza continues, and the horrors only continue to increase. Yet international news media, world leaders and major social media platforms continue to censor the story, further dehumanizing Palestinians,” Filmlab Palestine said in a press release unveiling the showcase.

“Palestine Cinema Days Around The World will light up movie screens around the world, upholding the Palestinian narrative that is so often violently silenced.”

Like last year, the one-day event coincided with the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration on November 2, in which Britain approved the establishment of a national home for Jewish people in Palestine.

The controversial statement also stated that this should be done without affecting the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in the area, but Palestinians dispute that this opened the door to stripping the rights of those already live on the land.

US screening locations include Oakstop in San Francisco, Robinson SPACE and Jackson Market in LA, BOK in Philadelphia, the Arab American National Museum in Michigan and Firehouse: DCTV’s Cinema for Documentary Film in New York.

Elsewhere, screenings are planned in London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin and Prague. Including Zurich, Rome, Madrid, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Alexandria and Cairo.

This week, high-level talks to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took place in Qatar, involving Mossad spy chief David Barnea and CIA Director William Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani were. hope for a breakthrough.

The families of Israeli prisoners are calling on the Israeli government to reach a deal to secure the release of their relatives, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected these calls and is pressing ahead with military action in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Cinema Days Around The World showcase is also supported by Beirut-based Arab film platform Aflamuna (formerly known as Beirut DC) and Cairo-based company Seen Films.