Arts and culture

Oscars' double standard turns Palestinian film into refugee


Above: Elia Suleiman in the director’s chair.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences operates a double standard that may have kept Elia Suleiman’s award-winning feature film “Divine Intervention” out of the competition for the Oscars, EI has learned. The film, a dark comedy about a love affair between two people on opposite sides of an Israeli military checkpoint, won a prestigious jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and the European Film Award. EI’s Ali Abunimah and Benjamin Doherty investigate. 

"Jenin Jenin" features at International Documentary Filmfestival

“Jenin Jenin”, a 54-minute documentary made by Palestinian filmmaker/actor Muhammad Bakri, features at the International Documentary Filmfestival (IDFA) in Amsterdam. This film is Bakri’s most cutting statement yet. Bakri says that the film is about “human suffering as such - about a wounded soul, a demolished home, a felled tree, a picked flower, a broken heart.” 

Peace Fire: "An explosive story unfolds"



Peace Fire: Fragments from the Israel-Palestine Story, edited by Ethan Casey and Paul Hilder, joins public figures and analysts with vivid street-level diaries from the people in the conflict - Israeli soldiers, peace activists, settlers, Palestinian gunmen, NGO workers, and refugees. “As the individual narrators offer their accounts, an explosive story unfolds.” 

"USS Liberty: Dead in the Water" now available in VHS and DVD



During the Six Day War between Israel and the Arab States, the American intelligence ship USS Liberty was attacked for 75 minutes in international waters by Israeli aircraft and motor torpedo boats. Thirty-four men died and 172 were wounded. The most recent documentary, a 2001 production from the British Broadcasting Corporation is USS Liberty: Dead in the Water, is now on sale in North America. EI’s Nigel Parry offers more information. 

Chicago: Palestine-Ireland Art Exhibit Opens

This exhibition will bring together the work of eight artists from Palestine, Ireland and the United States. The exhibition will explore the impact and effects of military occupation, faltering attempts at settlement, and the importance of history and memory in both regions, drawing comparisons and parallels where necessary. At Gallery 400, 400 North Peoria Street, Chicago, November 19-30 

Out of the Ashes, Drops of Meaning: The Poetic Success of Suheir Hammad



A little more than a year ago, Brooklyn-reared Palestinian American Suheir Hammad was just an obscure writer and occasional college student putting in work on the New York poetry circuit and taking to the streets for a variety of political causes. Then terrorists attacked her city. The 28-year-old responded the only way she knew how: She jotted down a poem, “First Writing Since.” Amid the ocean of print inspired by That Day, perhaps no other collection of words has so succinctly articulated the strange confluence of being both Muslim and American in that moment in history. Natalie Hopkinson writes in the Washington Post. 

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