Returning for its first in-person showing since 2019, the Palestinian Film Festival is back with a program celebrating the very best of Palestinian cinema, with a mix of film festival favourites, award-winning features, and relevant documentaries.

Traversing themes of people, place, and identity, this year’s festival will screen to audiences in Sydney (November 2-10), Melbourne (November 3-6), Brisbane (November 11-13), Canberra (November 11-13), Perth (November 11-13 Nov), Adelaide (November 18-20) and Hobart (November 18-20).

The program includes:

Feature films:

·  Amira (2021) – From Egyptian director Mohamed Diab (Moon Knight, 2022), a complex thriller about a girl’s whose identity isn’t what she thought it was.

·  Fahra (2021) – Jordanian filmmaker Darin J. Sallam’s debut feature film tells the story of a young girl whose dreams change from seeking education to survival in Palestine in 1948.

·  Gaza Mon Amour (2020) – A romantic drama about an aging fisherman who accidentally catches an ancient statue in his fishing net, which proves to be an unexpected spanner in his attempts to propose to his secret love

·  Huda’s Salon (Dear Son) (2021) – A drama about a Palestinian woman who is blackmailed into becoming an informant for Israel’s internal security service

·  Mediterranean Fever (2022) – Winner of the Best Screenplay Award at Cannes 2022, Mediterranean Fever is a darkly comic drama about an unlikely friendship formed between a depressed man and a small-time crook with an ulterior motive.

Documentaries:

·  Boycott (2021) – A look at the far-reaching implications of anti-boycott legislation in the USA and tells the inspiring story of ordinary Americans standing up to protect our rights in an age of shifting political landscape

·  Fadia’s Tree (2022) – A portrait of a refugee dreaming of home in a documentary that also has thoughts about friendship, politics, and birds.

·  Hummus: A Story of Appropriation (2020) – Tells the largely unknown story of the appropriation of Palestine’s treasured culinary staple.

·  Little Palestine, A Diary of a Siege (2021) – A devastating inside look into the district of Yarmouk, which sheltered the biggest Palestinian refugee camp in the world.

Retrospective Screenings

·  Return to Haifa (1982) – Widely regarded as Palestine’s first film, Kassem Hawal’s adaptation of Ghassan Kanafani’s autobiographic story of the same name, tells of Safia and Saeed, who are forced by gunfire and artillery to leave their 5-month-old son Khaldoun in the city of Haifa when they are expelled in 1948, return 20 years later to find their son adopted and enlisted into the Israeli army.