ei: Houston Palestine Film Festival opens 9 May

We are pleased to present the second annual Houston Palestine Film Festival. This exciting festival, cosponsored by The Station Museum, Rice Cinema, Museum of Fine Arts - Houston, KPFT Houston and many others, will bring cutting edge new cinema from Palestine and about Palestine.

The second annual Houston Palestine Film Festival brings an honest and independent view of Palestine, its diaspora, culture and political travails through the art of film. This group of groundbreaking cinematic texts rises above the degrading stereotypes or reductively politicized depictions that are so familiar to Houstonians. The festival aims to directly expose our local community to the perspective of artists as a first step toward circumventing the many government and media filters that pollute our understanding of Palestine and the wider region.

This year the festival's opening night will present the directors and performers from the Sundance Premiere film Slingshot Hip-Hop -- Jackie Salloum and DAM (hip-hop group from Palestine). Following the film, there will be a performance by DAM and Mohammad al-Farra of PR, two groups featured in the film about hip-hop in Palestine. This concert will take place at Warehouse Live in collaboration with Matt Sonzalah of AustinSurreal.com.

Some of the films in this year's festival include the comedy feature Driving to Zigzigland (Dir. Nicole Ballivian) and 9 Star Hotel (Dir. Ido Haar), which received the Best Documentary award at the Jerusalem Film festival.

The second annual Houston Palestine Film Festival will also include a night dedicated to Iraq, with a collection of short Iraqi and Palestinian films.

"The Houston Palestine Film Festival's aim is to share the Palestine that is not shown in mainstream media," says organizer Hadeel Assali. "The films provide an alternative perspective about important issues that are urgently in need of a place in public discourse today."

The Houston Palestine Film Festival runs 9-11 May and 16-18 May. For more information visit: http://www.hpff.org/.

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