BPFF showcases the diverse and creative work of all filmmakers (any nationality) exploring both historic and contemporary themes related to Palestinian culture, experience, and narrative. This festival features a range of compelling and thought-provoking documentaries, dramatic features, rare early works, and new films by emerging artists. These films from international directors bring an honest, self-described, and independent view of Palestine and its diasporic society, culture, and political travails.

The BPFF Selection Committee accepts films, videos and digital media in the following categories:

• Feature Films
• Documentaries
• Shorts (including animated or experimental works)
• Youth Work (created by filmmakers under the age of 18)

In 2008, the festival featured films related to the Palestinian refugee issue and themes of exile, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nakba. News coverage of the 2008 festival can be found here.

The 2009 festival had a focus on Gaza in the aftermath of the devastating invasion that began on December 27, 2008, when Israel launched a military attack on the Strip, causing immense human loss and infrastructural damage. Although the direct invasion ended in January, Israel’s siege of  Gaza continues for the third consecutive year.

While the primary cinematic program of this year’s festival will occur in October 2010 over a 1 -week  period spanning two weekends, a university program will launch soon after the festival in various campuses in the Boston area. The focus this year as with past years is on the cinematic production of  Palestinians and others depicting  the on-going Nakba and the effects of colonization on the lives and future of the Palestinian people.

This initiative is an ongoing program of smaller cultural events, talks, and screenings held throughout the year. In this way, the festival seeks to engage local audiences and sustain Palestinian arts and culture in the city throughout the year.

BPFF is envisioned as an ongoing multi-year initiative. In the long run, we seek to develop additional programs and events to increase the visibility of Palestinian films in the area, support emerging Palestinian filmmakers, and partner with other such festivals in the US and worldwide.

FILM SCREENING VENUES
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON Avenue of the Arts 465 Huntington Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02115 617-267-9300 www.mfa.org
HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts 24 Quincy Street Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/
CAMBRIDGE PUBLIC LIBRARY Lecture Hall, main branch 449 Broadway, Cambridge MA 02138 http://www.cambridgema.gov/CPL/	Free and open to the public Click for map
HARVARD UNIVERSITY Harvard Law School Langdell North, Room 225 Access into campus from 1563 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Close

FILM SCREENING SCHEDULE

All Tickets are $10 unless noted free or special price.

Discounted tickets available for Museum of Fine Arts members.

OCTOBER  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Museum of Fine Arts :: 7pm

Zindeeq tells the story of M, a Palestinian filmmaker in his forties living in a European country. M is working in Ramallah on a documentary based on witness accounts of the 1948 Nakba. A young Palestinian woman, 28, sensual, and attractive, works with him. She is modern, liberated, and free but is unimpressed by M’s advances and insists on maintaining a professional relationship between them.

M returns to his home town of Nazareth for a funeral, then later receives a phone call from his sister in Nazareth telling him that his nephew has killed another man during a scuffle and that the whole family is now in danger, including M, because of the traditional clan laws of vendetta that sanction the killing of the “best” members of the family as revenge. He is advised to fly back to Europe, or at least to stay far away from Nazareth. But he refuses and decides to go back home at 3:00 am.

The film chronicles the surreal hours M spends as he awaits dawn, searching vainly for a place to rest. The journey drives him into the depths of his mythical town, Nazareth, and forces him to rediscover his inner world where nostalgia for the past is in conflict with a strong desire for a future free of the past. Will he achieve the much-desired mourning for all that has disappeared in his personal life and in the collective history of his people?

>> Winner, Best Feature Film, Muhr Arab Awards, Dubai International Film Festival, 2009

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Friday, October 1

The School of the Museum of Fine Arts :: 9pm

230 The Fenway, Boston (across from the MFA)

Opening film and reception $22 General/ $18 MFA members

Reception only: $10 General/ $8 MFA members

OCTOBER  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Harvard Film Archive :: 1:00pm

Thyme Seller portrays the daily life of the director’s mother—a Palestinian woman from the Jerusalem area who plants and collects thyme on her land near the pre-1967 Green Line in order to sell it for a living. Every day, she collects the thyme and walks through the streets of Beit Jala, knocking on doors one after the other, trying to sell the herb to support her family. This moving portrait is new director Taha Awadallah’s graduation project: “It’s the least I can do to reward my mother.” .

In Tale of Existence, two gay Palestinian Jerusalemites share their extraordinary stories. From teenage discovery of sexual orientation to the subsequent challenges of self-acceptance and family rejection, the men tell their daring stories in the dark of the camera set.

Art comes from the roots. Fragments of a Lost Palestine is a subjective journey, shot as fragmented memories of the director’s country of birth, Palestine, as remembered throughout years in exile. The film is above all an encounter with people—intellectuals, peasants, workers, and the director’s niece as she grows.

Harvard Film Archive :: 3:00pm

Director will be present.

Canticle of the Stones tells the story of two Palestinian lovers, now in their forties. They had barely fallen in love nearly 20 years earlier when he was imprisoned for political activity. She ran off to the US to overcome her grief. Years later, she comes back to Jerusalem to study the impact of the Intifada on Palestinian society, only to find that her former lover has been released from prison. Against a backdrop of resistance and repression, they fall in love all over again.

This lyrical film strives to fill the gap between fiction and reality. Its poetic dialogue is beautifully intertwined with the harsh language of military occupation and resistance. Canticle of the Stones was Michel Khleifi’s second feature film, after Wedding in Galilee.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Saturday, October 2

Harvard Film Archive :: 5:00 pm - Following above film

Panelists include directors: Michel Khleifi, Eyal Sivan, Mohammed Alatar and Mahasen Nasser-Eldine.

Moderated by  Dr. Kamran Rastegar, Assistant Professor and Director of Arabic Program at Tufts University.

Free and open to the public.

OCTOBER  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Harvard Film Archive :: 1:00pm

Two girls turn up on the shores of a city in a kind of preapocalyptic paradise. Inspired by a massacre that took place in Gaza during July 2006, Everywhere was the Same commemorates this event through an artful kaleidoscope of images, voices, and music and other sounds, without actually disclosing the details of the event.

Long still frames, text, language, and sound are woven together to unfold the narrative of an anonymous group who fill their time by measuring distance. Longing, nostalgia, and melancholy are palpably felt, without ever giving viewers the clues to what has been lost. The film explores what it means–or how it feels–to be tied to a place, a narrative, an idea that no longer exists.

Innocent measurements become political ones, drawing an examination of how image and sound communicate history, tragedy, and the complication of Palestinian nationalism. We Began by Measuring Distance explores the ultimate disenchantment with facts when the visual fails to communicate the tragic.

Je Veux Voir is a fiction-documentary hybrid and an exploration of conflict and its visual representation that explores ways in which media and celebrity conspire to make invisible the very things they aspire “to see”. Catherine Deneuve is on location in Beirut months after the 2006 war. Anxious to see the war’s aftermath, Deneuve is escorted around Beirut and southern Lebanon by local actor Rabih Mrouh. As this “tour” proceeds into increasingly damaged areas of the country, it becomes unpredictable, its purpose and path growing ever less certain.

>> Co-Winner, Documentary Award, Gijon International Film Festival, 2008

Harvard Film Archive :: 3:00pm

Perforated Memory tells the story of a group of ex-guerrillas (fedayeen) who were active members in the Palestinian Revolution Movement during different stages of history. Many wounded former fedayeen reside in Jordan, where they suffer from poverty, neglect, and a certain collective “amnesia” about their historic sacrifices and heroism. Perforated Memory asks how the political events and personal narratives contributing to collective memory have been deformed to arrive at this tragic forgetfulness, making possible their abandonment despite their contributions.

>> Winner, Best Feature Length Documentary, Beirut International Documentaries (Docudays) Festival, Beirut 2009

On screen, one blank sheet of paper after another is slowly being filled with lines: inhabitants of Aida Refugee Camp (Bethlehem) draw mental maps of their surroundings and tell the stories related to those subjective geographies, histories, and narratives.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Sunday, October 3

Museum of Fine Arts :: 7:00pm

Director Eyal Sivan will be present.

Co-sponsored by Northeastern University’s Program in Cinema Studies, the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, and the Middle East Center for Peace, Culture & Development.

The Jaffa orange is the starting point for this extraordinary contemplation on the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians. Going back and forth from the foundation of the State of Israel to the present, through multiple discursive and aesthetic layers and with the broadest and most extraordinary range of twinned mythological and technological symbols, Jaffa, the Orange’s Clockwork reconstructs how Jaffa started out as a Palestinian place name before becoming an Israeli brand name, and how the orange harvest shifted from a joint undertaking into a symbol used by both parties in the escalating conflict. This tour de force features a kaleidoscopic montage of archive footage and images, from the very earliest photography in 1840 right up to crisp, modern video, accompanied by running commentary from myriad experts. Historians and art experts, poets and political analysts—each gives his or her perspective on the archive footage, which over the years has become increasingly laden with ideological significance. Orange eaters and pickers—many of whom remember a time when Jews and Arabs worked side by side in the orange groves—also have their say.

According to one review: “It’s hard to measure the artistic and political reach of Jaffa, the Orange’s Clockwork, because it works in different layers, as a genealogy of the image and representation–through paintings, home movies, propaganda, testimonies–or even as a chronicle of the contemporary spirit. Not so much a film, as an unavoidable experience. A powerful and unforgettable film.”

>> Winner, First Prize, Filmmaker Doc Film Festival, Milano, Italy, 2009

>> Watch film trailer

OCTOBER  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Cambridge Public Library – Main Branch :: 5:00pm

Lecture Hall, 449 Broadway, Cambridge MA 02138

Free and open to the public

by  Julie Norman
Video Art, 2009, 16 min.,  Palestine

Five youth-produced shorts integrate the works of Samih Al-Qasim, Mahmoud Darwish, and other Palestinian poets with images of daily life in Aida refugee camp. The resulting “digital poems” bring together literature and media, historical and contemporary ideas, and themes of political and personal expression.

A tribute to Mahmoud Darwish, the late master of Arabic poetry, this short, bittersweet film explores the aftermath of a death in both public and private contexts.

Director invited.

An evocative and lyrical paean to the life and times of late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, this thoughtful film takes viewers on a journey through Darwish’s life. Nasri Hajjaj tours the cities and towns the poet lived in, meeting contemporary writers and lovers of his work. The mosaic of memories and reflections is overlaid with readings of Darwish’s works. This heartwarming tribute is a fitting epitaph to a great artist whose words and dreams have inspired a generation.

>> Winner, Panorama Audience Award, Second Prize, Berlin International Film Festival, February 2010

Cambridge Public Library – Main Branch :: 7:00pm

Lecture Hall, 449 Broadway, Cambridge MA 02138

Free and open to the public

Director invited.

This film explores the anxiety that Palestinians experience about the site of burial, which lies at the heart of their dream to open up a spiritual gate that will lead them back home. Shot in many countries, including Lebanon, Syria, and the UK, it touches upon leading political and cultural figures, as well as ordinary Palestinians, whose deaths did not put an end to their existential alienation.

OCTOBER  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Harvard University :: 6:00pm

Harvard University Law School, Landgell North – Rm 225

Free and open to the public

During the January 2009 bombardment of Gaza, and with foreign news crews barred from the area, a group of Palestinian journalists and cameramen risked their lives to covertly film scenes of the destruction, intended for news broadcast around the world. Director Samir Abdallah intercuts this harrowing, often never-aired footage with interviews with the cameramen about their traumatic experiences—how they struggled with releasing these images because of their graphic nature, and how they continue to cope with their haunting, horrifying memories. Gaza on the Air is a bold, uncompromising tribute to the men and women of the media.

VIEWER WARNING: This is an exceptionally graphic film that contains raw footage of war victims.

Harvard University :: 8:00pm

Harvard University Law School, Landgell North – Rm 225

Free and open to the public

In August 2008, two small Greek fishing boats with 44 people from 17 countries on board set off from Larnaka, Cyprus towards their final destination, Gaza. Gaza We Are Coming records their historic and risky journey intended to break the naval siege, illegally laid by the state of Israel on Gaza.

This film chronicles the journey—the forerunner of that attempted in 2010 by the less-fortunate Freedom Flotilla—Israel’s reactions, the obstacles that were overcome, and the moving heroes’ welcome the boat received from thousands of Gazans when it actually docked on Saturday, August 23rd 2;008. It also explores the motives of those involved, including the ordinary Greeks who volunteered to participate in this dangerous but successful operation. It also recounts how the boats were built secretly in Greek shipyards, the logistics involved, the attempts to thwart the mission and why it was laden with such historical importance and pressure to succeed at breaking the 41-year-old marine blockade that Israel unilaterally imposed on Gaza, in contravention of international law.

>> Winner, Best Film, 12^th International Documentary Festival of Thessaloniki, Greece

In the pre-dawn hours of Monday, May 31, 2010, Israeli naval forces surrounded and boarded ships sailing to bring humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip in international waters. On the largest ship, the Mavi Marmara, Israeli commandos opened fire on civilian passengers, killing at least nine passengers and wounding dozens more. Cultures of Resistance director Iara Lee was aboard the besieged ship, detained in the port of Ashdod, and deported to Istanbul before returning home. Despite the Israeli government’s thorough efforts to confiscate all footage taken during the attack, Iara Lee and Director of Photography Srdjan Stojiljkovic were able to retain some raw video footage. This film is a 15-minute excerpt.

Discussion follows. Speaker: Col. Ann Wright, US Army (ret), eyewitness on the Mavi Marmara during the attack and Gaza Freedom March participant.

OCTOBER  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Harvard University :: 6:00pm

Harvard University Law School, Landgell North – Rm 225

Free and open to the public

Forget Baghdad tells the intimate and poignant story of five Israeli Jews of Baghdadi origin, all former members of the Iraqi communist party who emigrated as youths in 1950. As such, it is one of the few films that explore the history of the emigration of Arab Jews from their native countries to the newborn state of Israel.

The five protagonists (Moussa Houri, Samir Naqqash, Shimon Ballas, Sami Michael, and Ella Shohat—all now successful Israelis) were influenced in their youth by the internationalism of the Iraqi communist party. But in the early 1950s, their Jewish identity put them at odds with the rising Arab nationalism so characteristic of the decade. Fleeing to Israel—a one-way trip with no possible return—was hardly a solution, as the men found themselves on the outskirts of a society built and governed by European Jews. In effect, they became foreigners in their newly adopted country. Jews in Baghdad and Arabs in Israel, the divided identities and confusion of these four men’s lives tell a much larger tale of global, political and cultural disorder.

This deeply thoughtful film offers a rare glimpse of a little-known community that has long found itself caught between warring worldviews. Drawing on insightful interviews with academics, novelists, and other “Iraqi Israeli Jewish Arabs,” as well as on archival footage and topical Mizrahi comedy and Israeli propaganda films, Forget Baghdad allows the protagonists to reconnect with their original selves and explores a fascinating set of political, cultural, religious, national, and linguistic tensions linked to the emergence of new and potentially exclusive ways of identifying as Jewish or Arab. In so doing, the film confronts central issues of identity at the heart of national and ethnic conflict.

Reflecting on the stereotypes of the “Jew” and the “Arab” in the last 100 years of cinema, Forget Baghdad masterfully weaves its political, social, and cultural themes to a visually innovative and narratively profound end.

>> Winner, Zurich Film Prize, 2002

>> Winner, Critics Week Prize, Locarno International Film Festival, 2002

Wednesday, October 6

Harvard University :: 8:00pm

Harvard University Law School, Landgell North – Rm 225

Free and open to the public

In 1948, Israeli forces expelled the Palestinian villagers of ‘Ayn Hawd (Arabic for “Spring of the Trough”), a 700-year old Muslim village in the Southern Mount Carmel hills. Most of ‘Ayn Hawd’s inhabitants ended up outside the country in refugee camps, while some 150 managed to remain within Israel’s borders. After the war, they became “Present Absentees,” Israel’s euphemism for those who were displaced from their homes within the country and not allowed to return.

In 1953, while some 418 Palestinian villages depopulated by Israeli forces during the war were being razed to the ground, ‘Ayn Hawd was designated for preservation as an artists’ colony. In 1954, its name was officially changed to “Ein Hod,” which in Hebrew means “The Spring of Glory.” Meanwhile, in the hills above Ein Hod, some of ‘Ayn Hawd’s Present Absentees settled in a hamlet on what used to be their pastures, and today is a Jewish National Fund (JNF) forest. ‘Ayn Hawd al-Jadida (Arabic for the New ‘Ayn Hawd), is an unrecognized village according to Israeli law, which means it receives no governmental services such as water, electricity, sewage, a health clinic, an access road, or a public school, and its houses are slated for demolition.

In October 1998, a forest fire raged through the Carmel hills, damaging several Jewish settlements, including Ein Hod. The fire also threatened ‘Ayn Hawd al-Jadida, which would have burned to the ground were it not for the residents’ efforts to stave off the fire with their hands. The provisional water supply to the village was cut off, and all Israeli fire fighting efforts concentrated on evacuating the Jewish residents. ‘Ayn Hawd al-Jadida was all but forgotten. Subsequently, and despite the police’s own assertions that there was no evidence, a resident of ‘Ayn Hawd al-Jadida was arrested for setting the forest ablaze. 500 Dunam on the Moon documents the art of dispossession and the creativity of the dispossessed.

Discussion follows. Speaker: Dr. Nadim Rouhana, Director, Mada al-Carmel, Haifa

>> Winner, Jury’s Choice Award: Three Continents Documentary Film Festival/2002

OCTOBER  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Ashkenazim—Jews of European origin—are Israel’s “white folks.” Like most white folks in a multicultural society, they don’t think of themselves in racial or ethnic terms because by now, “Aren’t we all Israeli?” Yiddish has been replaced with Hebrew; religion with secularism; exile with occupation; the shtetl with the kibbutz; old-fashioned irony with post-modern cynicism; and pale-skinned girls with dark curls with tanned, bleached-blond divas. But the paradox of whiteness in Israel is that Ashkenazim aren’t exactly “white folks” historically.

A story that begins in the Rhineland and ends in the holy land, Ashkenaz looks at whiteness in Israel and wonders: How did the “Others” of Europe become the “Europe” of the others?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Thursday, October 7

Somerville Theatre :: 7:30pm

55 Davis Sq., Somerville

$28 Tickets at:  http://www.worldmusic.org

LE TRIO JOUBRAN

Majâz

Boston Debut :: co-presented with World Music

“This is contemporary oud playing at its finest inventive, quixotic and arresting–and it should appeal equally both to die-hard lute-ophiles and those approaching Arab music for the first time.”—Songlines

Direct descendants from a Palestinian family of ‘oud makers and players for four generations, Le Trio Joubran creates intricate and seductively eloquent original compositions that are filled with magnificent improvisation and technical virtuosity. For this exceptional concert, the three brothers Samir, Wissam and Adnan along with master percussionist Yousef Hbeisch, perform a special tribute to late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, with whom the trio collaborated for more than 12 years.

OCTOBER  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

The Latrun area is located in the West Bank at the crossroads between the Tel Aviv-Ramleh-Jerusalem and Ramallah-Ashdod roads. This hilltop has strategic importance because it provides control over the main road to Jerusalem. In 1948, Israeli forces tried repeatedly to capture Latrun, but were repelled. In 1967, however, they were able to capture it. Shortly thereafter, Israel demolished the existing Palestinian villages of ‘Imwas, Yalo, Beit Nouba, and Dar Ayyoub and forcibly transferred their Palestinian residents. In 1973, the Jewish National Fund of Canada raised $15 million to establish “Canada Park” in the area. Today, the residents remain displaced and barred from returning, while Israeli citizens enjoy barbecues and picnics, unaware of the human rights offenses perpetrated in their names on that very land. Israel treats the land as if it were part of Israel and refuses to acknowledge the historic Palestinian presence there, until the ”radical” Israeli organization Zochrot takes some Israeli children on a historic tour of the place.

Produced by the Ramallah-based human rights organization al-Haq, Memory of the Cactus follows two separate but parallel journeys. Former Yalo villager Aisha Um Najeh recalls how Palestinian residents were separated in time and place from the land they nurtured, while Israelis walk freely through that land, enjoying its fruits. The cactus stems are the sole remaining visible reminders of what once existed and thrived here.

by John Halaka
Documentary, 2009, 53 min.,  Palestine

Born and raised in the village of Tarshiha in the Galilee, Rana Bishara is a Palestinian Visual Artist whose creative practice includes sculpture, installation work, and performance art. The objects employed in her artwork perform as surrogates for the body and spirit of Palestine and its people. Her work, in both its physical and conceptual manifestations, is an expression of the inseparable blending of the personal and political experiences that define the identity of many Palestinians.

Bishara’s artwork is deeply embedded in and informed by the Palestinian experiences of displacement, exile, and occupation and the desire of Palestinian refugees to return to the lands from which they were displaced. Through her work, Rana wants to bear witness to what was destroyed and convey the wounds of the heart inflicted upon her father’s generation and subsequent generations.

Friday, October 8
Museum of Fine Arts :: 8:00pm

Co-presented by Amnesty International USA – Northeast Regional Office

Budrus documents, over a span of time, the efforts of the West Bank village of Budrus to prevent the destruction of its lands and livelihoods by the encroaching Israeli Separation Wall, whose planned route severs the village of 1500 olive farmers from their historic groves. Budrus resident and community organizer Ayed Morrar unites local Fatah and Hamas members along with Israeli supporters in an unarmed movement in what seems to be a futile effort to save the village from destruction. Things really heat up when Morrar’s 15-year-old daughter launches a women’s contingent that quickly moves to; the front lines.

Throughout the events chronicled in this cinema verité film, the film team was continuously present on the ground, providing a rare glimpse into history in the making. It also bears witness to Palestinians’ nonviolent resistance against their dispossession, which has been in evidence for decades but received scant attention compared with violent resistance. Budrus also includes diverse voices from all parties involved in the story

>> Winner, Audience Award, San Francisco Film Festival, 2010

>> Winner, Best of Fest, Traverse City Film Festival, 2010

>> Watch film trailer

OCTOBER  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Museum of Fine Arts :: 1:00pm

A Palestinian fairy tale about a girl who silently bears tremendous oppression in her life. After years of suffering, she is rewarded and lives happily ever after.

Three older women farmers embark on a taxing pre-dawn journey from the field to the vegetable market. They describe how the earth is their companion and confidant, helping them to bury the loneliness and oppression they must endure in order to make a living.

In 1948, following the UN partition plan for Palestine, fighting broke out between Arabs and Jews. In April, Hind al-Husseini, a 31-year-old teacher, came across 55 young orphaned children—most under the age of nine—wandering near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. They were survivors of the massacre in the Arab village of Deir Yassin, perpetrated by members of the Jewish Irgun and the Stern Gang. Husseini immediately rented them two rooms. Subsequently, she established an orphanage in her Jerusalem home, a mansion built by her grandfather in 1891. A social worker, educator, coordinator of the Arab Women’s Union in the 1940s and Palestinian National Council member, Hind dedicated her life to orphans until her death, even adopting several children who were left at the door of the school as babies.

Until Israel recently closed off the West Bank’s access to Jerusalem with walls and checkpoints, Dar al-Tifl al-Arabi (“The House of the Arab Child”) was the largest Palestinian orphanage, serving over 1500 pupils. Today, it stands virtually empty.

138 Pounds in My Pocket asks how Husseini and her successor filled gaps left by the absence of a state able, or willing, to provide adequate welfare for disadvantaged children. Part biographical, it offers unique insight into the commitment and personal struggle of a remarkable Palestinian woman.

Director Mahasen Nasser-Eldin will be present.

Mays is 22 years old, lives in occupied Palestine and works at the Palestinian Circus School. She is planning a life together with her Swedish boyfriend, Caspar and she intends to study at the University of Stockholm. However, the road from dream to reality is not easy. Mays is juggling between her family’s expectations and Swedish bureaucracy.

Museum of Fine Arts :: 3:30pm

Experimental, 2009, 13 min.,  Palestine

In this short art piece, we see ordinary men and women placing plastic bags over their feet, pulling their clothing up to their knees, clutching their children to their chests, and setting off down a 110-metre tunnel of sewage. This surreal and saddening sight is not staged. Jarrar’s short is shot in one of the few “routes” through which Palestinians from the West Bank try to enter Jerusalem, the city that was once the region’s urban center but now is rendered off limits by walls, checkpoints, and myriad Israeli permit requirements. Shot during the month of Ramadan in a sewage culvert beneath Beit Hanina (a Palestinian neighborhood of Jerusalem divided by walls and checkpoints), Journey 110 is visually haunted by half-invisible bodies wading through fetid darkness to reach a distant light at its end, reminiscent of the so-called “Journey of Light” associated with near-death experiences.

Documentary, 2008, 57 min.,  Palestine

Director will be present.

This documentary chronicles 100 years of history of Israel’s efforts to gain hegemony over the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. The film features rare historic footage from UN and news archives and interviews with Palestinian and Israeli leaders, human rights activists, political analysts, religious leaders, and Arab and Jewish Jerusalemites, who tell their stories firsthand.

The film explains in bite-sized history lessons how the State of Israel has taken distinct annexation measures to enlarge the city boundaries in order to preserve its demographic advantage and block the possibility of a sustainable Palestinian presence in the city. Meshed with this discussion is the most recent manifestation of Israel’s separation policy: the Separation Barrier, which cuts through Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem and leaves their residents in utter limbo.

The documentary takes you on a journey exposing Israel’s policy to gain control over the city and its inhabitants. It also touches on the future of the city: Jerusalem is the key to peace; without Jerusalem, there is no peace for anyone.

>> Winner, Best Non-Fiction/Documentary, 46^th Annual Gijon International Cine Festival, Spain, 2009

Film Website

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Saturday, October 9

Wilbur Theater :: 7:00pm

246 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02116

$25 and $32 Reserved seating. Tickets available through Ticketmaster: http://www.ticketmaster.com/ or 1.800.745.3000.

ARABS GONE WILD!

http://www.arabsgonewild.com

Boston Debut :: Featuring Arab-American comedians

Dean Obeidallah – Maysoon Zayid – Aron Kader

With special guest Eman

This hilarious and edgy stand-up comedy show tackles everything from politics to pop culture and Arab dating to Arab time.

OCTOBER  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Documentary, 2009, 75 min.,  Spain

On May 20, 2007, fighting broke out between the Lebanese army and “Fatah al-Islam,” a mysterious and hitherto unknown militia group that had spontaneously infiltrated Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli in North Lebanon. After 15 weeks of intense bombardment, the camp was reduced to rubble and more than 30,000 refugees made homeless. Despite plans to rebuild the ruined camp, the displaced families live under dire conditions and face an uncertain future.

In Road to Nahr el-Bared, the displaced refugees narrate the fearful story of the camp’s destruction, the dangers of being under siege, their fateful escape from the camp, and their hopes to return. The film, structured around interviews with 5 refugees, aged 9 to 62, is a look at the situation of a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon through their testimonies. Around them, there is a desolate environment that involves the characters and a school as the epicentre and narrative thread.

Documentary, 2009, 52 min.,  Lebanon

July 14th, 2006: Israel launches a massive attack on Lebanon that ended in displacing more than one million persons. During the 33 days war some families take refuge in a theater in the capital city of Beirut. This film shows the transformative ability of the arts and their healing powers.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Sunday, October 10

Museum of Fine Arts :: 2:00pm

Fiction, 2010, 25min.,  Jordan

Younis (Jonha), while caught in a Gaza tunnel, ponders the contradictions of being alive underground.

Documentary, 2010, 86 min.,  Switzerland, France, Qatar

Aisheen is an impressionistic journey through a devastated Gaza after the war. It tells the story about the wait after the disaster—the wait for a better future inside a metropolis that has become the biggest prison in the world. It shows how residents are still alive and coping with the trauma of their daily lives. Amidst pain, suffering, lack of resources and support, families struggle to pick up the pieces: farmers lament the past while gathering wood from the 56 uprooted olive trees that had provided livelihood for generations; a son recalls the moment of his brother’s martyrdom and dreams of becoming a martyr himself; an adolescent discretely mourns her mother.

Museum of Fine Arts :: 4:30pm

Short Drama, 2009, 7 min.,  UK

No Way Through brings the reality of life under military occupation uncomfortably close to home. The city of London is subjected to military rule. To get to school, go to work, visit friends or reach a hospital, it is necessary to navigate a matrix of checkpoints and soldiers. No Way Through is activist cinema at its best. It addresses universal issues of injustice by bringing the specifics of the occupation of Palestine into a world that could be all of ours.

>> Winner, “Ctrl+Alt+Shift” Film Competition, 2009

Documentary, 2010, 29 min.,  Norway

Far too many pregnancies in the Palestinian territories end in disaster because mothers are unable to reach hospitals in time owing due to hold-ups at Israeli checkpoints. Instances occur of babies being born at the Separation Wall, often with fatal consequences. Between September 2000 and July 2006 no fewer than 68 women gave birth at checkpoints in Palestine; 34 newborn infants and 4 mothers died there.

To address this gaping need, a Norwegian midwife, Berit Mortensen, launched a natal-care program in Ramallah on the West Bank. Drawing on her nursing experience in Norway, she is helping to recruit and train Palestinian midwives to provide medical check-ups and treatment for pregnant women in surrounding villages.

Out in the countryside, Berit and her team of midwives hear many heartrending stories from the women in their care. And on their way to visit rural clinics, they themselves often learn at firsthand how difficult it is to get from an outlying village to the hospital in Ramallah. Soldiers manning permanent and temporary checkpoints, closed roads, and a highway open only to Israelis all help to make the journey to hospital unnecessarily arduous for the mothers-to-be. All too often they are kept waiting for hours at military checkpoints, and not infrequently are forced to give up and return home, their needs unattended to.

Now employing 10 fully trained midwives, Mortensen’s program is supported by the Palestinian Committee of Norway and the Norwegian ministry of Foreign Affairs, and run in collaboration was entered with the Palestinian health authorities and Red Crescent at the hospital in Ramallah. New Life in the Line of Fire documents their experiences.

15 Short Films, 2009-2010, 45 min., Canada

Road movies have their roots in spoken and written tales of epic journeys, such as The Odyssey and The Aeneid. Like their antecedents, the films presented here tend towards an episodic structure in which each one reveals a piece of the plot—the master plan for Palestine—a road system partitioning the West Bank into three distinct enclaves with controlled passage between them.

Each segment follows a journey on either Palestinian or ‘Jewish only’ roads all shot in stop-motion animation in single takes. Journeys
that took several hours have been reduced to only minutes creating a density endemic to the political atmosphere. The films take on a
timeless feel as people and places appear and disappear capturing ghostlike figures in the frames. The intense methodology mimics the
systemic implementation of Occupation grafted onto the landscape.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Sunday, October 10

Museum of Fine Arts :: 7:00pm

Short Drama 2009, 14 min.,  Palestine

Set in the heart of Palestinian farmland, Roos Dajaj tells the story of an 11-year-old bedouin boy, Yousef, who faces a moral dilemma when his pet gazelle harms one of his father’s prized animals. Roos Djaj is a coming of age story that explores the fine line between taking responsibility for one’s actions and lying in order to protect oneself.

>> Winner, First Prize, Short Films, Muhr Arab Awards, Dubai International Film Festival, 2010

>> Winner, Best International Short Film, Sonoma Film Festival 2010

Animated Documentary Short, 2009, 8 min.,  UK

In an age dominated by  the moving image, what would it feel like to never see an image of your homeland? The Palestinian Film Archive contained over 100 films showing the daily life and struggle of the Palestinian people. It was lost in the Israeli assault of Beirut in 1982. In a meditation on this loss and its significance, interviewees recall from memory key scenes and moments from the history of Palestinian cinema. This unusual, thought-provoking, and moving animated film considers reconstruction and cinema’s involvement in the formation of cultural identity—and the idea that cinema, even in its absence, fuels memory.

Animate Projects Limited is a UK-based, non-profit arts organization, developing initiatives that explore the relationship between art and animation, and the place of animation and its concepts in contemporary art practice.

Drama, 2009-2010, 63 min.,  Palestine, France, UAE, Germany

Director will be present.

A Palestinian family awaits expulsion by Israeli authorities from their home of 40 years in Ajami, a once-wealthy sea-front area of Jaffa, now a crumbling neighborhood undergoing so-called “gentrification,” a thin veneer for Judaization. Personal and cinematic memories and a very uncertain future weigh heavily upon the residents’ everyday rituals. It’s as if the slow-motion repetition of everyday gestures were their only way of suspending the course of time, of delaying the inevitable—expulsion.

Both the mundane minutiae and the profoundly traumatizing effect of dispossession as experienced by one family are portrayed. The picture the film paints of the ancient Palestinian port city of Jaffa, once a thriving urban and economic port city of 120,000 Arabs in pre-1948 Palestine and now a poor ghetto neighborhood of Tel Aviv with barely 4000, is that of a shrinking skin slowly closing in on its resigned inhabitants, who are crushed by fate, whatever they say about it. The film attests to the Nakba that continues today.

Radically poetic and visually stunning, Port of Memory is a reflection on the absurdity of being at once absent and present.