your father was born 100 years old, and so was the Nakba
(ابوكي خلق عمره ١٠٠ سنة، زي النكبة)
Dir. Razan AlSalah, 2017.
Canada/Palestine. 7 min.
In Arabic with English subtitles.A ghostly voice echoes: the disembodied, imaginary voice of the filmmaker’s grandmother, a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon who was never able to return to her hometown. Her words haunt Google Street View images of Haifa, the only means she could have had of visiting her lost home. But 50 years after the “great catastrophe,” the streets are no longer recognizable. The old woman’s soul wanders in vain through cyberspace in search of her house, probably demolished after the Nakba, and for her son Ameen, imagined as a little boy from another time. Over the images, which distort and pixelate as the network connection cuts in and out, are superimposed images of the trauma of forced relocation. Razan AlSalah pays heartbreaking tribute to the first generation of refugees.

TETA, OPI, AND ME
Dir. Tara Hakimm, 2018.
Canada. 25 min.

In English, Arabic, German with English Subtitles.Filmed entirely with an iPhone, Teta, Opi & Me is a tribute to conformity, tolerance and courage. It is a poetic, meditative, multilingual, and feeling-driven short film, documenting the intricacies of the artist’s playful process in capturing her grandparents’ enduring romance through social, political and racial adversity. He comes from Bethlehem and she comes from Vienna. Incorporating poetic filmic scenarios, vérité scenes, interviews, and home movies, the work is an intergenerational dialogue that explores themes of family, love, and the intermingling of cultures.

EITR
(عطر)
Dir. Fateema Al-Hamaydeh Miller, 2022.
Canada. 15 min.
In English and Arabic with English subtitles.

Grinding away at the inherited family business, Mohamed works tirelessly making sales of knock-off perfume while living as a knock-off version of his true self. Grappling with the recent loss of his father, his mother’s anxious attempts to get him married and the shadow of his hidden Queer identity, Mohamed finds solace and connection in a day spent with a beautiful stranger who lives in self-acceptance and sees Mohamed for who he truly is under the many layers of polo-sport-adjacent cologne.

BOREKAS
Dir. Saleh Saadi, 2020.
Palestine. 15 min.

In Arabic with English subtitles.A breakdown on the way to the airport provides a father and son with an opportunity to reconnect.PLANET OF THE ARABS
Dir. Jacqueline Reem Salloum, 2003.
United States. 9 min.
In English.Planet of the Arabs is an experimental short on Hollywood’s negative depiction of Arabs and Muslims through the decades. Inspired by Dr. Jack Shaheen’s book “Reel Bad Arabs,” Planet was an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival, won the “Best Editing” award at the Cinematexas Film Festival. It is used as an educational tool in classrooms on stereotypes in the media.

THE CUP READER
Dir. Suha Araj, 2012.
Palestine/United States. 12 min.
In Arabic with English subtitles.

Warde, shamed as a young girl yet renowned in Palestine for her mystical seeing and matchmaking, lives with her sister Jaleleh and reads the fortunes of her clients. Each woman has made or will make a choice between love and marriage, not having had the luxury of both.

Our songs were ready for all wars to come
Dir. Noor Abed, 2021.
Palestine. 20 min.

Choreographed scenes based on documented folktales from Palestine, the film aims to create a new aesthetic form to re-awaken latent stories based around water wells and their connection to communal rituals around notions of disappearance, mourning, and death. Our songs were ready for all the wars to come explores the critical stance of ‘folklore’ as a source of knowledge, and its possible connection to alternative social and representational models in Palestine. How can ‘folklore’ become a common emancipatory tool for people to overturn dominant discourses, reclaim their history and land, and rewrite reality as they know it? The only narration in the film is a song, which is sung by Palestinian singer Maya Khaldi. Its lyrics are a collage of different folk tales. Captured through mediums of film and sound, situated stories are archived and represented, creating a context that explores the capacity of social formation, and the possibility of recalling a memory that is capable of decentralizing images of fixity; a memory that is liberated from monuments.