PREVIEW: 2022 PALESTINIAN FILM FESTIVAL

The 2022 Palestinian Film Festival joins the ranks of international film celebrations regaining its live event footing post-COVID. For the first time since 2019, Festival Director Naser Shaktour will tour the country with the eleventh program, a line-up of feature films, documentaries and retrospective screenings that highlight a filmmaking culture both intellectually and creatively at its peak.

Traversing themes of people, place and identity, this year’s Festival will roll out nationally, beginning in Sydney (2-10 Nov), then Melbourne (3-6 Nov), Brisbane (11-13 Nov), Canberra (11-13 Nov), Perth (11-13 Nov), Adelaide (18-20 Nov) and Hobart (18-20 Nov). (Pictured, above; Tara Abboud, in Amira) 

“We’re very proud to present the best of Palestinian cinema. This year’s program focuses on the power of personal storytelling in building individual and collective resilience,” said Shakhtour, Founder and Director of Cultural Media, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the promotion of Palestinian art and culture in Australia. “With award-winning films set in Palestine 1948 to present day Palestine, we have curated an engaging and unforgettable program guaranteed to inform and inspire."

Opening Night honours have been bestowed upon Jordanian filmmaker Darin J. Sallam debut feature, Farha. The story of a young girl whose dreams change from seeking education to survival in Palestine 1948, the devastating narrative about loss, dispossession and survival is a poignant and remarkable first feature that became one of the must-see titles of TIFF 2021, where it debuted in the Next Wave strand. (Pictured, right; Karam Taher, in Farha)

Other narrative features in the 2022 program include Amira, a complex thriller about a girl whose identity isn’t what she thought it was, from in-demand Egyptian director Mohamed Diab (one of the creative forces on the Disney+ MCU series, Moon Knight); Gaza Mon Amour, from brothers Arab and Tarzan Nasser, a charming romantic drama about an aging fisherman and an ancient statue; and, Hany Abu-Assad’s Huda’s Salon (Dear Son), a twisting and gripping drama about a Palestinian woman blackmailed into becoming an informant for Israel’s internal security service. The showpiece title of the festival is Maha Haj’s Mediterranean Fever, a darkly comic friendship drama about a depressed man and a small-time crook, which earned the Best Screenplay Award at this year’s Festival du Cannes.

Documentaries to screen at the event include Julia Bacha’s Boycott an incisive look at anti-boycott legislation in the USA that tells the inspiring story of ordinary Americans living in defiance of the shifting political landscape; Fadia’s Tree, Sarah Beddington’s inspiring, tender portrait of a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon (pictured, right); Hummus: A Story of Appropriation, the largely unknown story of the appropriation of Palestine’s treasured culinary staple, from director Lafi Abood; and, Abdallah Al-Khatib’s Little Palestine, A Diary of a Siege, a journey inside the district of Yarmouk, which homed the biggest Palestinian refugee camp in the world.

In a true declaration of the festival’s commitment to Palestinian film culture and history, this year Naser Shaktour and his team will present a 40th anniversary screening of director Kassem Hawal’s Return to Haifa (A'id ila Hayfa). The story is based on a 1969 novel by Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, who would be assassinated in 1973. Widely regarded as Palestine’s first film, it recounts the journey of Safia (Hanan Al Haj Ali) and Saeed (Paul Mattar), who are forced to leave their baby son when they are expelled in 1948, only to return 20 years later to find their son adopted and enlisted into the Israeli army. All proceeds from the screening of Return to Haifa will be donated to the Ghassan Kanafani Cultural Foundation.

Ticketing and session information for the 2022 Palestinian Film Festival can be found at the event’s Official Website.