(Still from When Weather Permits)
Longing for Palestine الاشتياق إلى فلسطين
screening of five short films | total Running time: 51m | book ticketsA cinematic exploration on borders, the physical, emotional, material and immaterial; those that dictate movement and return, or lack thereof, for Palestinians universally.
I Would Like to Visit أودُّ الزيارة
An experimental short and installation work that combines text and film to explore the simple desire to travel, through the cultural and political realities of being Palestinian. Soundtracked with the anxiety of disposition, the work opts to show a close up of text being typed and edited on word-processing software, the work complicates a simple desire to travel by adding to it the social, cultural and political realities of being a Palestinian.
director: Muhammad Nour Elkhairy
Genre: short, experimental
year of release: 2017
Original Language: EnglishYour Father Was Born 100 Years Old, and So Was the Nakba أبوكي خلق عمره ١٠٠ سنة، زي النكبة
A grandmother returns to her hometown Haifa through Google Streetview, today, the only way Palestinian refugees can see Palestine.
director: Razan AlSalah
Genre: short, Experimental
year of release: 2018
Original Languages: Arabic, (English subtitles)
Like An Event In A Dream Dreamt By Another – Rehearsal مثل حدث في حلم رآه آخر - تمرين
In RPGs (role-playing games), one could say that real life can be rehearsed in a superstitious manner, with supernatural beings and worlds. Since the emergence of computer processing power and video games, the third world was a source for worldbuilding and space to apply game operations. Those games are not isolated from the socio-cultural and political environment that they are developed in. On the other hand, third-world gamers, developers, streamers, and hackers managed to modify those games and apply their own hyperreality in order to rehearse their world. This project explores how Palestinian players, GTA mods, and servers are simulating real life under colonial rule. Like An Event In A Dream Dreamt By Another - Rehearsal examines Los Santos as a corollary to Palestine.
director: Firas Shehadeh
Genre: short, Experimental, animation
year of release: 2023
Original Languages: English
When Weather Permits
A short experimental film that mixes photography, archival images, and audio, this piece explores the profound longing and complex realities of Yousef’s homeland. Over the past five years, he has journeyed to the highest point in his village in Ramallah, where on rare clear days, the distant Mediterranean Sea becomes visible. This sea, a symbol of freedom and life, remains out of reach due to the restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation on Palestinians living in the West Bank.
director: Hareth Yousef
Genre: short
year of release: 2024
Original Languages: englishMoonscape وجه القمر
Moonscape وجه القمر: Moonscape is a short film which takes the form of a music video for a ballad/middle of the road song, performed as a duet between a male and female singer, in Arabic. The song traces the story of a man called Dennis M. Hope, who claimed ownership of the Moon in 1980 and thus founded the Lunar Embassy – a company that sells land on a variety of planets and Moons, and makes a connection between his story and that of the director’s – a young Palestinian woman living under the Israeli occupation, longing to end the misery of her people in any way possible.
The visuals of the film are a hybrid of surrealist scenes from the Arab music industry, reenacted by the artist’s parents who also play the roles of the singers in the film, and film noir; in addition to found footage from the NASA archives, references from canonic films which influenced the art world and show representations of the Moon, and screenshots of Email correspondences with staff members of the Lunar Embassy. All in order to explore the relationship between hope, nostalgia and despair.
director: Mona Benyamin
Genre: Short, experimental
Year of Release: 2020
Original Language(s): Arabic, English (English subtitles)Age suitability: PG
Content warning: Themes of colonialism, loss, displacement, yearning for returnEvents are ticketed but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Please reach out.