At the end of last November, filmmaker Mohammad Bakri furiously left a press conference organized at the Library of the Auditorium of Rome. He was present because of the performance of the opera Al Kamandjati based on the story of Palestinian musician Ramzi Aburedwan and his music school in Ramallah. The reason for his anger was that not a single journalist asked him any questions when he announced that he would soon be tried in Israel because of his 2002 film Jenin Jenin. Read more about Italian solidarity with Palestinian filmmaker on trial in Israel
Cultural critic Joseph Massad finds a problematic political agenda is at the heart of Nadia Kamel’s first documentary Salata Baladi, in which she mourns the imagined loss of a cosmopolitan Cairo, told through the story of her mother Mary Rosenthal, a.k.a. Naila Kamel and her separation from family that left Egypt for Israel. Read more about Salata Baladi or Afrangi?
In the strange world of Israeli academia, an Arab college lecturer is being dismissed from his job because he refused to declare his “respect for the uniform of the Israeli army.” The bizarre demand was made of Nizar Hassan, director of several award-winning films, after he criticized a Jewish student who arrived in his film studies class at Sapir College in the Negev for wearing his uniform and carrying a gun. Jonathan Cook writes from Nazareth. Read more about Academic freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel
The Toronto Palestine Film Festival is now accepting entries for the first annual festival to be held in October 2008. Conceived by Palestine House, the festival is an important component of the year-long activities commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Nakba. Cinema represents a powerful means for visually interpreting the collective identity and historic struggle of the Palestinian people. Read more about Toronto Palestine Film Festival seeking entries
The following is an open letter sent to Director-General of UNESCO Koichiro Matsuura on 14 February 2008: On behalf of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, we are writing to express our deep concern about your statements, quoted in The Jerusalem Post, during your recent visit to Israel. These statements were one-sided, completely ignoring Israel’s continuous crimes against Palestinian history and heritage. Read more about Boycott group to UNESCO: Protect heritage of all cultures
Much debate on conflict in the Middle East is beset by contradictions and unanswered questions. In his second book, Nazareth-based English author Jonathan Cook seeks to cut these Gordian knots, and in the process proposes an uncompromisingly grim diagnosis of what is happening in the world’s most unstable region, and why it is happening. Raymond Deane reviews for EI. Read more about Book review: "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations"
The architecture of occupation is thoroughly analyzed in the Israeli-born architect Eyal Weizman’s Hollow Land. The study takes us to the heart of a conflict which has always been about land, where “the mundane elements of planning and architecture have become tactical tools and the means of dispossession.” Behind the headlines, the reality on the ground (as well as above and beneath it) continues to be reshaped daily. Ben White reviews. Read more about Sovereignty by stealth: Eyal Weizman's "Hollow Land"
The year 1948 is the worst year in Palestinian history. It is the year of the destruction of Palestinian society and the dispossession and expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs by Zionist forces. Today, there are about five million Palestinian refugees around the world, still waiting to exercise their right of return. Most refugees live in the surrounding Arab countries; however some of them live very close to their original homes. In my case, I live only three kilometers from my own village: Lifta. Anan Odeh’s images document the village where his parents were born and forced to flee in 1948. Read more about Photostory: As long as there is life, there is hope
Although it is a small stretch of land, Palestine has many faces, from tiny country villages to bustling cities. Perhaps one of the most impressive places is the city of Nablus. Coming from Ramallah, passage into the city is through the huge, overcrowded Huwwara checkpoint. Having crossed this reversed city gate, set up by the Israeli military in October 2000, the first impression is that of a vivid Arab city, albeit with a sense of tension in the air. In a recent visit, Toon Lambrechts traces Nablus’ five millennia of history. Read more about Nablus, wounded in the war on history
The Boston Palestine Film Festival (BPFF) is now accepting entries for its second annual festival to be held in October 2008. BPFF seeks to present the extraordinary narrative of a dispossessed people living in exile or under Israeli occupation. Palestinian cinema represents a powerful means for visually interpreting the collective identity, historic struggle and emotional expression of Palestinians today. Read more about Entries sought for 2008 Boston Palestine Film Festival
