A modern day Joseph and Mary living in Gaza, try to reach Bethlehem on the turn of the millennium -- to arrive on time would be a miracle.
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 -- 106’ (Palestine: 2000)
Filmed in a West Bank neighborhood designed by her architect grandfather in 1956 and now marooned behind an army checkpoint. Instead of making any overtly political point, the film quietly follows aimless lives, lads playing football, a bored child setting fire to a heap of rubbish.
Originally from Jerusalem, Rosalind Nashashibi was born in the UK of Irish and Palestinian parents. She has an MFA from Glasgow School of Art. Nashashibi is an experimental filmmaker working predominantly in 16mm film. She is the recipient of a number of awards and grants including the prestigious Beck's Futures Award.
Rosalind Nashashibi -- Experimental short (USA: 1999)
Arabic with English subtitles A Palestinian family’s land, once covered with olive trees and crops, has been bulldozed by Israeli forces. Debris is not simply the story of a farmer whose house is bulldozed and whose farm is destroyed. Debris is a fantasy… of dreams to fly far away in order to touch the sky, to break out of the despair of reality. Debris is the story of an entire generation who inherited humiliation and ignominy.
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 -- 10' (Palestine: 2002)
An Israeli soldier views a documentary about the aftermath of the Israeli invasion of Jenin refugee camp. He is one of the drivers of the bulldozers that caused massive destruction in the camp. The camera moves between demolished homes and alleys, echoing the hopes and fears of the Palestinian people and their basic right to live in peace. This is the story of simple dreams being wiped out by the invasion.
Nizar Hasan -- 60' (Palestine: 2003)
Esam, a young Arab war refugee who lives in Tel Aviv, makes his living as a male prostitute. His physical pleasures, which make him forget his hunger, remind him constantly of his childhood memories in his home village.
Tawfik Abu Wael was born in the Palestinian town of Um El-Fahim in Israel, in 1976. He graduated from Tel Aviv University, where he studied film directing, and worked in the film archive from 1996 to 1998. He taught drama at the Hassan Arafe School in Jaffa from 1997 to 1999.
Tawfik Abu Wael -- 14', Arabic with English Subtitles (Palestine: 2001)
In the early autumn of 2002, seven young Palestinian artists gather in Ramallah to present their work in a group exhibition for an Arts Competition. Three others, unable to attend because of the total closure of the Gaza Strip where they live, send their work through the French and British diplomatic bags.Three jurors brave the closures and travel to Ramallah from Jerusalem, Cuba and France. The film is a video diary, which recounts the events surrounding the exhibition and explores some aspects of art’s relationship with resistance, politics and violence.
Omar Al-Qattan is a Palestinian-British director, producer and writer. Born in Beirut in 1964, he has worked in film since 1991. His film credits include, among others, Dreams and Silence (1991), a 52 minute documentary shot during the weeks preceding the Gulf War, portraying a Palestinian woman refugee in Jordan and her struggles with the religious and social constraints around her at a time of great tension and anguish. The film, one of the first to tackle the theme of political Islam, won the Joris Ivens Award.
Omar Al-Qattan -- Documentary, 17’ (UK/ Palestine: 2002)
A camera follows four handicapped children and their families through the margins of a society that struggles for autonomy and independence.
Hanna Musleh was born in 1954 in Beit Jala to Wahbe and Nijmeh Musleh. During his youth he attended the Mennonite School in Beit Jala, and later went to study in Leningrad State University in Russia for a degree in anthropology, finally obtaining his M.A. from the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology at Manchester University in England. Musleh then returned to Palestine and has worked as a professor at Bethlehem University since 1980 where he has taught cultural studies, history, anthropology and currently teaches film appreciation, anthropology of religion and philosophy.
Hanna Musleh -- 52' (Palestine: 2002)
In Nazareth, under a guise of normalcy, the town embraces folly. The Palestinian people, unable to act on their feelings of oppression, take out their hostilities on one another. A love story takes place between two Palestinians: a man living in Jerusalem and a woman living in Ramallah. The man shifts between his ailing father and his love life, trying to keep both alive. Because of the political situation, the woman's freedom of movement ends at the Israeli army checkpoint between the two cities. Barred from crossing, the lovers' intimate encounters take place on a deserted lot right beside the checkpoint. The lovers are unable to exempt reality from occupation. They are unable to preserve their intimacy in the face of a siege. A complicity of solemn desire begins to generate violent repercussions and, against the odds, their angry hearts counter-attack with spasms of spectacular fantasy.
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 -- 92’, Arabic/Hebrew/English (Palestine/France/Morocco/Germany: 2002)
