Arts and culture

Review: "A Stone's Throw Away" and "The Children of Ibda'a"



Both of the films A Stone’s Throw Away and The Children of Ibdaa investigate the thoughts and lives of a handful of children from the Deheisheh refugee camp, an impoverished refugee town on the outskirts of Bethlehem. Together, they illustrate that what drives Palestinians to commit violence, and how children need something to make their lives meaningful given the humiliation and lack of opportunity that come with living under Israeli military occupation. 

Scottish parliament asked to support global Concert for Palestine



A motion now before the Scottish parliament calls on the chamber to support a recently launched appeal for a global concert in defence of Palestinian human rights. Presented by Labour Party parliamentarian Pauline McNeill, the motion states that “a large international music concert would help bring the humanitarian crisis to the attention of young people throughout the world, building on the successes of the Concert for Bangladesh in 1972, Live Aid in 1985, Mandela Freedom Concert in 1988 and the Freedom for Tibet Concert in 1997.” 

Review: "Route 181: Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel"



Capturing the fragments of a land shattered by politics, history, and colonialism, Route 181: Fragments of a Journey in Israel-Palestine, clocks in at about four and a half hours. The film’s length is epic-worthy, but it allows the filmmakers to present oral history from a wide variety of people who live along the 1947 partition line, while at the same time allow for minutes-long footage of the monotonous grey concrete wall that quietly runs along one of the region’s main roads. By portraying both the divide of the physical landscape and that of the humans that inhabit it, viewers receive a fuller understanding of this conflicted part of the world. 

Interview: Jihad! filmmakers Muhammed Rum and Nara Garber



“It’s a personal jihad for me, to have made it, to have gone through the process of making it,” says Muhammed Rum of his directorial debut Jihad!, the name of which comes from the Islamic spiritual concept of struggle of the will — the film’s central theme. Cinematographer Nara Garber, who took on many of the production roles because of the film’s limited budget, also considers the film to have been a personal journey, because it helped her more fully realize the hurdles Arab-Americans and Palestinians face in their respective situations. 

Film review: "Planet of the Arabs" and "Arabs A Go-Go"



Based off of Jack Shaheen’s excellent anthology Reel Bad Arabs, which categorically catalogues depictions of Arabs in American film, Planet of the Arabs, while not without humor, reminds us that racist depictions of Arabs in American entertainment is a huge problem. And Arabs A Go-Go is Jacqueline Salloum’s modest attempt to contradict the racist tripe that Hollywood presents as Arab culture. Maureen Clare Murphy reviews the two short films, featured in the Chicago Palestine Film Fest, for EI

Film review: Remembering Palestine and Writers on the Borders



Like every other aspect of Palestinian life, art and culture, though not destroyed, have been crushed under the heavy weight of the Israeli occupation’s tanks and curfews. The documentary films Writers on the Borders and Remembering Palestine feature international writers and artists who visit Palestine and find a shocking landscape of destruction. But, as the narrator Dominique Dubosc explains in Remembering, the question is not so much one of succeeding to restart art schools in the West Bank and Gaza, as being there to bear witness. 

Film review: Jihad!



Boldly using one of the most misused words in the U.S. press as its title, a word that strikes at the greatest anxiety of Americans towards Islam, the new feature film Jihad! informs its viewers that what the word is really about is zeal and struggle. Following Ed, a young Palestinian New Yorker who struggles between his homeland’s tradition and the American lifestyle, the film stresses that the most important jihad is the struggle within oneself. Read the review of Palestinian-American Muhammed Rum’s film, to be premiered at the Chicago Palestine Film Festival this week. 

Film review: Ford Transit



“Staying in one place is killing me,” says Rajai, the charismatic West Bank refugee who serves as the center of the Palestinian feature film Ford Transit. Although this comment was made while explaining his unorthodox career choice of being a taxi driver, Rajai’s attitude can be applied on a larger level to describe the feeling of a generation of refugees who live under the thumb of Israeli occupation. Read the rest of the review of this excellent new film by acclaimed Palestinian director Hany Abu Asad. 

Madonna pushes her fears over the borderline, cancels Israeli concerts



Citing security concerns, the Queen of Pop last week abruptly canceled an eagerly awaited series of concerts set for this September in Tel Aviv, Israel’s largest city, which would have included a televised concert on September 11. It is reported that Madonna’s “Re-Invented Tour” will include video footage of a Palestinian boy and an Israeli boy walking arm in arm. The last time Madonna played in Israel was on 4 October 1993 at Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park. Read Victor Kattan’s commentary on the irrationality of Madonna’s fears, and why more celebrities should perform in the Palestinian territories. 

Architecture event: One Land, Two Systems - Beyond the division lines in Israeli spatial planning



On Sunday, June 6, 2004 at 4.00 p.m., at De Balie Amsterdam, an architecture design competition for an alternative plan for one of the so-called ‘unrecognized’ Arab villages in Israel will be kicked-off. The competition is part of One Land, Two Systems, a project that renders visible how spatial planning is used as a political instrument in Israel. The project One Land, Two Systems brings together architects, planners, photographers, lawyers, writers, human rights activists to design and show alternatives and to bring these into the publice debate. 

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