Festival of Cultural Resistance

4 – 11 pm

4:00 – 6:30 p.m.

Al-Awda launches the evening with a talent show featuring local youth! Representing the new generation of cultural resistance, Palestinian Arabs and Arabs for Palestine between the ages of 4 and 21 will present artwork and perform poetry, rhymes, and Palestinian and Arabic songs of liberation.

7:00 p.m.

The celebration of cultural resistance continues with dance and song.

The traditional debka dance evolved from the rich culture of Palestinian farming. Farmers made their task more enjoyable and collectively productive by incorporating dance into their work. Today, debka serves as a Palestinian symbol of victory, solidarity and resistance.

The Debka troupe, Eyes of Palestine, will perform.

The evening continues with a performance of Palestinian & Iraqi folk music performed on traditional Arabic instruments such as the oud and tableh.

Al-Awda is calling on Palestinian Arabs and Arabs for Palestine between the ages of 4 and 21 to share their talents with us on this evening. To be involved, please read the Talent Call (English / عربي) for more information!

Film and Video Mini Festival
Sunday September 26

3:00 PM
“The Cage”, Director Fathi A. Ali, 2003

This film is a documentary about children in Al Ama’ari refugee camp (near Ramallah). It shows Fathi A. Ali working with the children on a theatre play about their own lives, the lives of children in Palestine under the occupation.

4:15 PM
“Mira’at Jamila/Jamila’s Mirror”, Director Arab Lotfi, 1993
This documentary, by Lebanese/Egyptian filmmaker Arab Lotfi is about memory. In it Palestinian women in their 40s who had been guerrilla fighters talk about the time when they were involved in military operations, often when they were 18 or 19 years old.
 

5:00 PM
“until when…” Director Dahna Abourahme, 2003
“until when…” is about four Palestinian families who live in Dheisheh Refugee Camp near Bethlehem. We follow them in their daily activities as they tell us about their lives and their hopes for a better tomorrow. “until when…” offers an intimate portrait of a resilient people whose basic living needs, freedom of movement and equality embody not only the struggles which come with living under occupation but also their dreams.
 

6:30 PM
“like twenty impossibles”, Director Annemarie Jacir, 2003
Occupied Palestine: A serene landscape now pockmarked by military checkpoints. When a Palestinian film crew decides to avert a closed checkpoint by taking a remote side road, the political landscape unravels, and the passengers are slowly taken apart by the mundane brutality of military occupation. Both a visual poem and a narrative, like twenty impossibles questions the opportunism of artists and the politics of filmmaking, while focusing on the fragmentation of a people.
 

7:00 PM
“In The Spider’s Web”, Director Hanna Musleh, 2004

In the Spiders Web was produced by Al-Haq in order to provide a visual overview of collective punishment as it affects the daily lives of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Directed by Hanna Musleh, the 45-minute film tells many stories, focusing on two in particular: those of a woman from Hebron and another from Nablus.

8:00 PM
“Planet of the Arabs”, Director Jackie Salloum, 2003

A movie trailer-esque montage spectacle of Hollywood’s relentless dehumanization and vilification of Arabs and Muslims.

8:15 PM
“Rana’s Wedding”, Director Hany Abu Assad, 2002

Shooting on location in East Jerusalem, Ramallah and at checkpoints in-between, Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad sees Palestine through the eyes of a young woman who, with only ten hours to marry, must negotiate her way around roadblocks, soldiers, stone-throwers, overworked officials … and into the heart of an elusive lover.