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The annual Reel Palestine Film Festival offers Palestinian actors and filmmakers a unique opportunity to showcase their work to the United Arab Emirate’s diverse market.
“The event offers greater visibility for Palestinian films. The wide range of featured movies includes politicised, comedic, and documentary films. So it’s good exposure for the Palestinian movie industry and Palestinian filmmakers,” director Said Sagha said.
The festival will be on from 19th to 27th of this month and screenings will take place in Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue in Al Quoz, the Sharjah Art Foundation, Warehouse 421 and Manarat Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi.
This year, the range of featured movies includes a large mix of political, comedic and documentary films. Here are our picks of films you shouldn’t miss at Reel Palestine.
Wajib
'Wajib' is a father-son drama written and directed by seasoned filmmaker Annemarie Jacir and has impressed audiences and film critics alike since its release last year.
The movie, which runs for 1 hour and 36 minutes, revolves around the growing distance between Palestinians living at home and members of the diaspora living abroad. This angle breaks away from the conventional narratives that directly focus on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
So far, the film has won three awards at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland, two awards at the London Film Festival, and four awards at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina.
Five Boys and a Wheel
Done by director and screenplay writer Said Sagha, 'Five Boys and a Wheel' is an adaptation of a short story written by the American author Raymon Carver entitled 'Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarettes'.
When Sagha read the story about ten years ago, it resonated with him. “I felt that something similar had happened to me when I was young, which could have unfolded the same way as the story did. So I decided to adapt the plot to something that is suitable for an Arab audience,” he said.
Set between the cities of Amman and Aqaba in Jordan, the film has won several awards including the Silver Palm Award for Narrative Short Competition at the Mexico International Film Festival in 2017 and was nominated for the Muhr Best Short Film Award at the Dubai International Film Festival in 2016.
Ghost Hunting
Reminiscent of his imprisonment in the Moskobiya interrogation center in Jerusalem 30 years earlier, director Raed Andoni placed a newspaper advertisement in Ramallah calling all former inmates of the center to attend his auditions. Those selected to be featured in the film built a replica of the interrogation rooms and re-enacted their time in prison in an effort to come to terms with their experiences.
The narrative documentary won the Glasshütte Original Documentary Award at the Berlin International Film Festival last year. It was also nominated for the Panorama Audience Award at the same festival, in addition to numerous other nominations at the Philadelphia Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, and Sheffield International Documentary Festival.
The Parrot
“It all started with a parrot. A parrot that lived in the 1940’s, back at my grandmother’s house in Jerusalem,” co-director Amjad Al Rasheed said.
Years later, at the Berlin Film Festival, Al Rasheed met an Israeli director who lived in the same neighbourhood as his grandmother. This is when the stories he heard while growing up about that parrot came back to the surface.
“I started wondering what if the family of this director lived at my grandmother’s house and met the parrot,” he added.
Thus, the idea behind the film came to life, featuring a Mizrahi Jewish family that, in their new house in Palestine in 1948, found some possessions left by the former Palestinian occupants, including a big blue parrot called Saeed.
1948: Creation & Catastrophe
Co-directors Andy Trimlett and Dr. Ahlam Muhtaseb spent the past ten years researching archived documents and footage as well as interviewing Israelis and Palestinians about their experience of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, an event that caused the displacement of half of the Palestinian population.
Presented by Amnesty International and the Rhodes College Muslim Student Association, the documentary includes interviews with notable scholars like Charles Smith, Ilan Pappe, Rashid Khalidi, Benny Morris, Sharif Kanaaneh, Avi Shlaim and Nur Masalha.
In an attempt to showcase the sequence of events that took place in Palestinian cities and villages the feature-length documentary offers a unique mix of Palestinian and Israeli first-hand accounts as well as never-before-seen images.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. The content does not provide tax, legal or investment advice or opinion regarding the suitability, value or profitability of any particular security, portfolio or investment strategy. Read our full disclaimer policy here.
For more lifestyle stories on young Muslims worldwide, visit My Salaam
© ZAWYA 2018
“The event offers greater visibility for Palestinian films. The wide range of featured movies includes politicised, comedic, and documentary films. So it’s good exposure for the Palestinian movie industry and Palestinian filmmakers,” director Said Sagha said.
The festival will be on from 19th to 27th of this month and screenings will take place in Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue in Al Quoz, the Sharjah Art Foundation, Warehouse 421 and Manarat Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi.
This year, the range of featured movies includes a large mix of political, comedic and documentary films. Here are our picks of films you shouldn’t miss at Reel Palestine.
Wajib
'Wajib' is a father-son drama written and directed by seasoned filmmaker Annemarie Jacir and has impressed audiences and film critics alike since its release last year.
The movie, which runs for 1 hour and 36 minutes, revolves around the growing distance between Palestinians living at home and members of the diaspora living abroad. This angle breaks away from the conventional narratives that directly focus on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
So far, the film has won three awards at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland, two awards at the London Film Festival, and four awards at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina.
Five Boys and a Wheel
Done by director and screenplay writer Said Sagha, 'Five Boys and a Wheel' is an adaptation of a short story written by the American author Raymon Carver entitled 'Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarettes'.
When Sagha read the story about ten years ago, it resonated with him. “I felt that something similar had happened to me when I was young, which could have unfolded the same way as the story did. So I decided to adapt the plot to something that is suitable for an Arab audience,” he said.
Set between the cities of Amman and Aqaba in Jordan, the film has won several awards including the Silver Palm Award for Narrative Short Competition at the Mexico International Film Festival in 2017 and was nominated for the Muhr Best Short Film Award at the Dubai International Film Festival in 2016.
Ghost Hunting
Reminiscent of his imprisonment in the Moskobiya interrogation center in Jerusalem 30 years earlier, director Raed Andoni placed a newspaper advertisement in Ramallah calling all former inmates of the center to attend his auditions. Those selected to be featured in the film built a replica of the interrogation rooms and re-enacted their time in prison in an effort to come to terms with their experiences.
The narrative documentary won the Glasshütte Original Documentary Award at the Berlin International Film Festival last year. It was also nominated for the Panorama Audience Award at the same festival, in addition to numerous other nominations at the Philadelphia Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, and Sheffield International Documentary Festival.
The Parrot
“It all started with a parrot. A parrot that lived in the 1940’s, back at my grandmother’s house in Jerusalem,” co-director Amjad Al Rasheed said.
Years later, at the Berlin Film Festival, Al Rasheed met an Israeli director who lived in the same neighbourhood as his grandmother. This is when the stories he heard while growing up about that parrot came back to the surface.
“I started wondering what if the family of this director lived at my grandmother’s house and met the parrot,” he added.
Thus, the idea behind the film came to life, featuring a Mizrahi Jewish family that, in their new house in Palestine in 1948, found some possessions left by the former Palestinian occupants, including a big blue parrot called Saeed.
1948: Creation & Catastrophe
Co-directors Andy Trimlett and Dr. Ahlam Muhtaseb spent the past ten years researching archived documents and footage as well as interviewing Israelis and Palestinians about their experience of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, an event that caused the displacement of half of the Palestinian population.
Presented by Amnesty International and the Rhodes College Muslim Student Association, the documentary includes interviews with notable scholars like Charles Smith, Ilan Pappe, Rashid Khalidi, Benny Morris, Sharif Kanaaneh, Avi Shlaim and Nur Masalha.
In an attempt to showcase the sequence of events that took place in Palestinian cities and villages the feature-length documentary offers a unique mix of Palestinian and Israeli first-hand accounts as well as never-before-seen images.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. The content does not provide tax, legal or investment advice or opinion regarding the suitability, value or profitability of any particular security, portfolio or investment strategy. Read our full disclaimer policy here.
For more lifestyle stories on young Muslims worldwide, visit My Salaam
© ZAWYA 2018
