The Law and Prophets

The Law and the Prophets (2023)

Saturday, October 28, 2023 at 3:00 pm. In Israel, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, the law is whatever Israel deems to be in the best interest of Jewish Israelis and to the detriment of Palestinians. Israel violates the civil and human rights of Palestinians as a matter of standard, accepted policy. However, there are brave, determined individuals who are trying to expose the destructive, unjust, and sometimes invisible ways in which Israel exploits and oppresses Palestinians. […]

Read more about "The Law and the Prophets (2023)"
Israelism

Israelism (2023)

Saturday, October 21, 2023 at 3:00 pm. Two young American Jews witness Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinian people with their own eyes, they are horrified and heartbroken – the Jewish institutions that raised them not only lied but built their Jewish identity around that lie. […]

Will be shown in the same program as “Coming Home”.

Read more about "Israelism (2023)"
Liwan

Liwan: a Story of Cultural Resistance (2023)

Sunday, October 29, 2023 at 3:00 pm. Liwan: A Story of Cultural Resistance is about a “culture café” in Nazareth. It opened in 2016 when the old market of Nazareth was a no-go area, run down following an Israeli “redevelopment” project. Despite many difficulties, they opened, and many new cultural spaces have followed, driving a revival of the souq. They practice ‘cultural resistance’, organizing activities that focus on the Palestinian identity. […]

Will be shown in the same program as “Coming Home” and “Hummus”.

Read more about "Liwan: a Story of Cultural Resistance (2023)"
Make hummus not walls

Hummus: a Story of Appropriation (2023)

Sunday, October 29, 2023 at 3:00 pm. Since the start of the occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967, the Israeli government has placed restrictions on the Palestinian population, which in turn has left them in an unprecedented time bubble. Using the cultural appropriation of the popular chickpea dip Hummus as a frame, the film chronicles the lives of some ordinary Palestinians in Jerusalem. Conditions in the city affect their lives such that they cannot mourn the past, live the present, or contemplate a future. Their very humanity is appropriated. In many ways, their lives parallel the fate of Hummus. […]

Will be shown in the same program as “Coming Home” and “Liwan”.

Read more about "Hummus: a Story of Appropriation (2023)"
Coming Home

Coming Home (2023)

October 21, 22, and 29, 2023 at 3:00pm. Amer Abdelrasoul, leader of the Freedom Dabka Group, describes the group and what it means to his community living in Bay Ridge (Brooklyn). Debka, a folk dance from the Levantine region, represents Palestinian aspirations, struggle, and history. “Doing Debka is the closest thing I know to being back home in Palestine … Something that’s warm and filled with hope,” one of the dancers said. […]

Will be shown in the same program as “Hummus” and “Liwan”.

Read more about "Coming Home (2023)"
Hebron street scene

H2 – The Occupation Lab (2023)

Sunday, October 22, 2023 at 3:00 pm. An opening card explains that “H2” is the area where 800 Jewish settlers live at the center of the largest city in the West Bank, population 250,000 Palestinians. Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard (whom we featured in 2021 with Occupation & De Facto Annexation) explains the “occupation lab” part of the title: Hebron is a test location; successful occupation tactics will appear later elsewhere. […]

Will be shown in the same program as “Coming Home”.

Read more about "H2 – The Occupation Lab (2023)"
Blue Box

Blue Box (2021)

Saturday, October 22, 2022 at 3:00 pm. The filmmaker’s great-grandfather, Joseph (Yosef) Weitz, emigrated to Palestine from Eastern Europe as an 18-year-old laborer in 1908. In the 1930s, he became director of the non-profit Jewish National Fund (JNF), whose international blue box donation campaign raised money to buy Jewish land and, through its forestation program, served as an inspirational Zionist campaign, fulfilling the Biblical promise of trees blooming in the desert.

Michal interviewed members of her extended family about their pride in the man known as “the Father of Israel’s forests,” but when she grew older, she discovered that Grandpa Joseph had another darker nickname: “The Architect of Transfer” or what we would now call ethnic cleansing […]

Screened with “We Never Left, Palestine”

Read more about "Blue Box (2021)"
Hudas Salon

Huda’s Salon (2021)

Sunday, October 23, 2022 at 3:00 pm. Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad, whose films Paradise Now and Omar were both nominated for Oscars, continues to deliver hard-hitting stories from the moral frontline. In Huda’s Salon, that line is located in “Bethlehem, West Bank, Occupied Palestine.” In a thriller of political and emotional twists and turns, Abu-Assad reveals a society poisoned by the betrayal and intrigue that comes with occupation […]

Screened with “We Never Left, Palestine”.

Read more about "Huda’s Salon (2021)"
The Journey of the Others

The Journey of the Others (2019)

Saturday, October 29, 2022 at 3:00 pm. “We resist through art,” is the theme of Palestinian survival in the Jenin refugee camp, West Bank.

Twelve-year-old Wadee Manasara resists through his painting. “Every time the [Israeli] army enters the camp, I go to my room and start painting,” he says at the beginning of this film.

Another form of resistance is theater, a “safe space.” This movie is the story of actors and support crew from The Freedom Theatre in Jenin preparing for a trip to New York City to perform The Siege, a play about the Israeli Defense Forces occupation of Bethlehem in 2002 […]

This film will be screened with “Siri Miri” and with “We Never Left, Palestine”

Read more about "The Journey of the Others (2019)"