The Edition of LPFF 2018 is great selection of both highly established filmmakers and emerging talents showcasing their investment in Palestine’s film industry covering various cultural, social and political issues. Calendar for these two weeks is full with rich selection of Palestinian cinema features, documentaries, workshop, book discussions and much more commenting on events in contemporary Palestine in recent years.
In 1998 was the first time when London Palestine Film Festival was organized. It was an initiative from students studying in London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Within these 20 years organizing team have been working on drawing attention to events happening in Palestinian culture and their land.
This year the team of the festival organizers are putting emphasis on various stories from Gaza’s last two wars (2009 and 2014) and the issue of political prisoners. We are about to expect more than 30 films in cinemas (Barbican, Curzon Soho, ICA, Phoenix, Rio) made by influential self-proved artists such as Mai Masri, Eyal Weizman, Bella Freud, Kamal Aljafari, and many more.
What to see and visit:
Ghost Hunting (dir. Raed Andoni, 94 mins)
Screening on 16th November
“In order to confront the ghosts that haunt him, Palestinian director Raed Andoni assembles an eclectic group of ex-prisoners to re-enact their experiences of imprisonment and torture. In a minimally-built replica of Al-Moskobiya, Israel’s main interrogation centre, where he was himself jailed at age 18, the survivors recreate the traumatic events for the camera. From fragmentary memory, day after day, they give shape to the interrogation centre they all experienced. As the walls of the cells rise, the tongues and the emotions loosen. Ghost Hunting has been selected as Palestine’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar for the 2018 Academy Awards.”
The Tower (dir. Mats Grorud, 74 mins)
Screening on 19th November
“Wardi, an eleven-year-old Palestinian girl, lives with her whole family in the refugee camp where she was born. Her beloved great-grandfather Sidi was one of the first people to settle in the camp after being chased from his home back in 1948. The day Sidi gives her the key to his old house back in Galilea, she fears he may have lost hope of someday going home. As she searches for Sidi’s lost hope around the camp, she will collect her family’s testimonies, from one generation to the next.”
194. Us, Children Of the Camp (dir. Samer Salameh, 88 mins)
Screening on 28th November
“The film follows the director’s journey as he is forced to join the Palestinian Liberation Army in Syria only a month before the start of the Syrian uprising. With the escalation of violence and the increasing attacks by the Syrian regime army on the camp, the director and his friends attempt to document the hopes, struggles, departures and loss they experience.”
Launch of the book Palestinian Cinema in the Days of Revolution by Nadia Yaqub.
On 22nd November
“We’ll be celebrating the launch of Palestinian Cinema in the Days of Revolution by Dr. Nadia Yaqub. Join us in exploring the origins of an important national cinema, examining Palestinian film-making during the 1970s and how it both sustained a revolution but also continues to inspire in a new century. The author, an associate professor of Arabic language and culture as well as chair of the Department of Asian Studies at the University of North Carolina, will be joining us for a fascinating discussion.”
Most of the screening are complimented with Q&A sessions.
Check out for full programme – https://www.palestinefilm.org.uk
Quoting Raed Andoni, the director of film Ghost Hunting: “What’s inside you, you beat it or it beats you.” to sum up the not so positive experiences in lives of Palestinians in recent years.
