A challenging documentary dealing with the issue of violence against children in Palestinian society and it's economic, historic and social roots. Includes interviews and footage of children and their families from Gaza and the West Bank
Abdel Salam Shehadeh is from Rafah in Gaza, Palestine. He has worked in television production and media and as a camera and sound technician, and has worked in various capacities for international news crews. Director of more than 15 Documentary films such as The Shadow, the Cane, and Debris which had a good impact in many international festivals.
Abdel Salam Shehadeh -- 26' (Palestine: 2000)
This documentary-feature tells the story of two Palestinians who fall in love during the sixties. Due to the political climate, their relationship is denied its full expression when he is condemned to life imprisonment for acts of resistance against the Israelis and she emigrates to America to overcome her sorrow. Eighteen years later, they meet at the height of the Intifada. She is now a scholar and is in Jerusalem to research the meaning of sacrifice in Palestinian society, only to find him liberated and working for an agricultural aid organisation. Their feelings for each other are rekindled but time has not made things any easier. They are surrounded with chaos and violence and must struggle once more to maintain their ties.
Michel Khleifi was born in Nazareth in 1950. In 1970 he traveled to Belgium where he studied television and theatre directing. Considered the founder of modern Palestinian cinema, Khleifi produced and directed several full-length features and documentaries for international release and broadcast. His previous documentary feature, Fertile Memory (1980), was the first Palestinian film to be shown at the Cannes FF and was a groundbreaking work, both on a political and aesthetic level, treating the struggle for women's freedom and emancipation, across the generations and under occupation, in a haunting lyrical style that became all his own.
Michel Khleifi -- 100’ (Palestine/Belgium: 1990)
Commissioned for the Arab Screen Festival of March 2000 as part of a series of films on the much publicized killing of Mohamed Al-Dorra, Tahady is an account of the director’s own drastically aborted attempts to meet with his crew in Ramallah to discuss the possibility of making the short film in question. The meeting is complicated by the fact that Hassan happens to be an Israeli citizen.
Nizar Hassan -- 21' (Palestine: 2000)
"We're deprived from playing because of the landmines, and our families are not able to cultivate the land." Israel left many landmines in South Lebanon when they withdrew from the country in May, 2000. Following Israel's withdrawal, many children continued to be injured by these mines. This film aims to prompt both government and public action to remedy this situation.
Hicham Kayed is a 2008 Joiner Fellow. A Palestinian living in Lebanon, he is the director of The Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts, organizations which work conducting writing and film workshops for Palestinian youth living in the refugee camps in Lebanon. He is the multimedia coordinator of AL-JANA, the Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts in Beirut.
Hicham Kayyed -- 18' (Lebanon: 2002)
When filmmaker Mai Masri returned to her hometown of Nablus after a fourteen year absence, she discovered a new generation of Palestinian fighters: the children of the Intifada. Children of Fire captures their courageous story on film and paints a daring portrait of the Palestinian uprising.
Mai Masri (b. 1959) is a Palestinian filmmaker largely based in Lebanon. Masri received a degree in film production from San Francisco State University. She has directed and produced several award-winning films that have been broadcast and shown internationally.
Mai Masri -- 50’, Arabic with English Subtitles (Lebanon: 1990)
Many people first became aware of the Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon after the shocking and horrific Sabra-Shatila massacre that took place there in 1982. Located in Beirut's "belt of misery," the camp is home to 15,000 Palestinians and Lebanese who share a common experience of displacement, unemployment and poverty. Fifty years after the exile of their grandparents from Palestine, the children of Shatila attempt to come to terms with the reality of being refugees in a camp that has survived massacre, siege and starvation. Director Mai Masri focuses on two Palestinian children in the camp: Farah, age 11 and Issa, age 12. When these children are given video cameras, the story of the camp evolves from their personal narratives as they articulate the feelings and hopes of their generation.
Mai Masri (b. 1959) is a Palestinian filmmaker largely based in Lebanon. Masri received a degree in film production from San Francisco State University. She has directed and produced several award-winning films that have been broadcast and shown internationally.
Mai Masri -- 50’, Arabic with English Subtitles (Lebanon: 1998)
What does it mean to be Palestinian in the second half of the twentieth century? Filmmaker Elia Suleiman returned to the land of his birth to answer that question. Born in Nazareth in 1960, well after the establishment in 1948 of the State of Israel in historic Palestine, Suleiman lived for twelve years in self-imposed exile in New York. He returned to attempt to find his roots in a culture that had been uprooted. Chronicle of a Disappearance is a personal meditation on the spiritual effect of political instability on the Palestinian psyche and identity.
Born in 1960 in Nazareth, Elia Suleiman lived in New York from 1981 to 1993. While in the United States, he has directed his first two short films: Introduction to the End of an Argument and Hommage by Assassination, winning numerous awards.
Elia Suleiman -- 88’ (France/Palestine: 1996)
Suha Arraf was born in 1969 in the village of Mi’ilya to a Palestinian family. She obtained her BA degree in Philosophy and Literature at Haifa University (1990) and her Master’s degree in Anthropology at the University of Tel Aviv (1994).
Suha Arraf -- documentary (Palestine: 2001)
