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)
A portrait of a Palestinian refugee in Jordan and her struggles with the religious and social constraints around her at a time of great tension and anguish preceding the Gulf War.
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 (UK: 1991)
In this short documentary film, the director and her father explore the meaning of identity on the face of war and the loss it entails. Shamounki explores her family history as she takes her camera long the terrain of this story of memory and identity.
Nadine Shamounki was born to Palestinian parents in Beirut, Lebanon and raised in Jordan, Europe and the USA. She acquired her two undergraduate degrees from The University of Maryland in Cultural Anthropology and Art Studio. She finished her M.A. at New School University in Media Studies.
Nadine Shamounki -- 19' (USA: 2002)
Born in 1942 in Palmilla, Chile to Palestinian parents, is a major Latin American director and screenwriter. Littin has had a long and distinguished career as a filmmaker and screenwriter in his home county and in Europe.
End of September reorients Palestinian history by linking the past, present, and fantastical future. Dalal (Majd Hijjawi), a female fada’i (freedom fighter) returns to Palestine in shifts of time. Challenged by the results of the end of Israeli occupation, Dalal journeys through the Holy Land in search of fellow fedai Jad (Firas Taybeh). Betrayed by her own history, Dalal relives the reproduced/recycled Palestinian plight.
