Palestinian Days film festival
Brisbane's inaugural Palestinian film festival, Palestinian Days, is jointly organised by Queensland Palestine Association Inc and Justice for Palestine Brisbane. It will give audiences a glimpse of Palestinian life since dispossession in 1948 to make way for the creation of the state of Israel.
Head of the Palestinian delegation to Australia, Ambassador Izzat Abdulhadi, will officially open the festival on October 16.
Quite understandably, sympathetic Jewish holocaust stories have abounded in movies and books since WWII. The ramifications of the creation of Israel for Palestinians are not nearly as well understood.
When Palestinians are depicted in stories and the media, it is too often only as terrorists or religious fundamentalists and not as victims of an immense injustice.
Opening night will be a celebratory affair with food and live entertainment by Phil Monsour before the screening of Hicham Kayed's Lemonade. This 13-minute popular piece won the gold prize at the Cairo International Film Festival and been shown at festivals as far afield as Boston.
The second feature on opening night is the internationally awarded and very moving Arna's Children, which is a true story written and directed by Juliano Mer Khamis and Danniel Danniel. An interesting program of diverse films continues all weekend.
The 11am session on October 17 features Letter from Sarah directed by Muraz Jan Kot. It was nominated in 2003 for best film and script award in Cairo and was applauded by audiences at the 24th International Mediterranean Film Festival in Montpellier, France.
This will be followed by Palestine Blues directed by Nida Sinnokrot, which had its world premier at the 13th Annual New York Underground Film Festival. It is the sad story of the impact of the Israeli security wall and settlement expansion in the West Bank on Palestinians.
The 2pm session on October 17 offers Frontiers of Dreams and Fears directed by Mai Masri, which focuses on the children of the Shatila and Dheisha refugee camps and seems to capture the hearts and tears of audiences in an intense way. Another film is Jerusalem: the East Side Story directed by Mohammed Alatar. As the title suggests it tells the story of Palestinian dispossession in East Jerusalem.
At 7.30pm on October 17, Palestine, Summer 06 directed by Rowan Al Faqih and Nahed Awwad shows. This is a crossover between film, video art, and individual expressions all combined to reflect the mood of the summer of 2006 when Israel carried out military assaults in Gaza and Lebanon.
This will be followed by the compelling Arus el Jaleel (Bride of Galilee), directed by Basel Tannous. Tannous worked for more than four years to gain the trust of Fatma and her family in the making of this moving account of the encounters between two individuals on either side of the conflict.
Screening October 18 at 11am is Driving to Zigzigland directed by Nicole Ballivian. It is a chronicle of a day in the life of a Palestinian cab-driver in Los Angeles and portrays the social struggle of Arab immigrants in the post-9/11 United States.
On October 18 at 2pm is Mohammad Bakri's Jenin Jenin, which is a testimony from Jenin residents after their city and camp were flattened and scores of them killed. Palestinians and human rights groups accused Israel of committing war crimes in the April 2002 attack on the refugee camp.
The film shows the extent to which the prolonged oppression and terror has affected the state of mind of the Palestinian inhabitants of Jenin. This will be followed by a second film from Bakri entitled Since You Left. It is an autobiographical essay using archive footage, personal films, and documentary materials to account for the personal and political transformations that have occurred in Palestine as well as within his own thinking.
At 6pm on October 18 is Watani Habibi, My Beloved Homeland by John Mandelberg. This is a rich musical expose revealing the exquisite sun drenched landscapes of ancient Palestine and the haunting sounds of traditional Arabic instruments in harmony with the passionate voices of Palestinian cultural resistance.
The final film in the festival is Mohammed Alatar's The Iron Wall.
Iron Wall reveals the official and unspoken policy of the Zionist movement and the state of Israel to use settlements to create a Zionist foothold in all of Palestine. They seek to make the creation of a Palestinian state impossible.
[Fay Waddington is a member of the Queensland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.]