In Lebanon, France, Brazil and the United States, over 90 venues around the world are hosting the Palestine Cinema Days festival. The 10th edition of the festival organised by FilmLab Palestine was due to be held from 24 October to 2 November in five Palestinian towns in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Naturally, the event had to be cancelled. However, with the idea of "maintaining spaces where the experiences, stories, lives and broken dreams of Palestinians are seen and heard", the organisers have come to an agreement with several cultural players to share "90 free screenings".
"A necessary platform at a time when history is being distorted", say the organisers of this initiative, who in their press release deplore the fact that "Palestinians are dehumanised, blamed for their suffering, while the value of their lives is considered inferior to that of Israeli civilians".
Coinciding with the date of the Balfour Declaration, the event is launched on 2 November to provide "a platform for censored Palestinian voices and to combat the falsification of history and propaganda that has been going on for a long time". Fifteen screenings are planned in thirteen French cities, making France the first host of the festival - ironic given the French government's position and support for Palestine.
FilmLab Palestine has proposed eight documentary and fiction films to its partners:
- The issue of Palestinian prisoners through "The Ghost Hunt" by Raed Andoni, himself a victim and survivor of Israeli jails;
- The journey, testimonies and personal stories of 12 Palestinian women in Carole Mansour's film Stitching Palestine;
- A documentary about young surfers: "Gaza Surf Club" by Mickey Yamine and Philip Gnadt;
- The story of two friends practising an acrobatic sport in Gaza, "One more jump" by Emanuele Gerosa;
- The reconstruction of a massacre committed on a Palestinian family in 1948 by the Haganah, the core of the Hebrew State army, "Farha" by Darine Sallam;
- The destruction of the town of Nazareth by the Israeli army in 1948 in Elia Suleiman's fictional film 'The Time That Remains';
- The life of a Gazan family in a refugee camp in Gaza under an Israeli curfew in Rashid Masharawi's drama 'Couvre-feu';
- A tale of love between two young teenagers in Gaza against the backdrop of the blockade in "The Tale of Three Diamonds" by Michel Khleifi.
All the screenings can be viewed on this map.