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Palestinian Films at OXDOX

richarddirecttv | 24.10.2005 11:21 | Oxford

Oxford: Palestinian films screening today

fron 6pm - 24 October 2005, Old Fire Station

Part of OXDOX (http:/www.oxdox.org.uk)




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A Palestinian Journey by Osama Qashoo

Screening: 24 October at 6.00 p.m.

Oxford, Old Fire Station 40 George Street Oxford OX1 2AQ

Post Screening Discussion With Director

A Palestinian Journey

Part 1: My Dear Olive Tree

A documentary film about my olive tree under the Israeli occupation, recording the destruction of our olive trees. Also examining the role that the trees play in daily life, and why it is important for people to defend them against Israeli attempts to destroy them. The film touches on the irony of my existence in London and my discovery of peace doves made from olive trees of the Holy Land.



Parts 2: Inside Outside

‘People are usually born in their homeland – but for us, our homeland is born in us’. How does it feel to be a Palestinian, living in exile on an island in Palestine, in the middle of London? How do Palestinians born in the UK understand their identity? Generations of émigrés explain the sickness of exile to the filmmaker, newly arrived from Palestine after being forced to leave.



Part 3: No Choice Basis

Being on the edge of different lives, facing the question of identity, hanging on the phone, feeling my life on the surface whilst still following my destiny... so many questions, concerns and strong feelings...and then the unexpected exile from my exiled land. Must life be lived on a ‘no choice basis‘?



Director: Osama Qashoo

Running Time: 55 minutes Palestine /England 2005 QA with director

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Kings and Extras. Digging For A Palestinian Homeland
Director: Azza El-Hassan
Running Time: 62 minutes
Germany, Palestine 2004
Post Screening Discussion With Director

The films of the PO Media Unit were supposed to show a self-determined image of Palestinian reality – and they went missing during the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. In a ‘road movie’ from Palestine to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, the director Azza El-Hassan follows the contradicting and confusing clues of the lost archive. The increasingly absurd search finally leads her to a martyr’s graveyard, where the films are said to be buried – no one will dig here. After a series of dead ends, Azza is confronted with new clues and starts to construct her own story. Myths, life stories and lies, and the personal effects of defeat and loss are revealed with an insiders contradictory sense of belonging and opposition.

Screening: 24 October at 7.15 p.m. Old Fire Station

richarddirecttv

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

You what?

24.10.2005 21:11

It would be a 'fair point' in another context, but in this case it's totally irrelevant. There's no reference to HAMAS in any of the films. The first three seem to be about the experience of the Palestinian diaspora, and searching for a sense of identity as someone seperated from their homeland. The fourth appears to be a travelogue which references issues of loss, history and uncertainty.

Can we please delete the stupid post about HAMAS? I really feel that this is allowing the crazy right-wing types to set the agenda in debate, when they don't have a basis for what they're talking about. The assertion of a Palestinian right to self-determination cannot be allowed to be conflated with support for HAMAS.

In case anyone's wondering: I fully repudiate HAMAS, and their religous and cultural conservatism. Actually, in many areas, FATEH also supported the stoning and hanging of alleged prostitutes in the street during the beginning of the 1st intifada. Fuck all the tin-pot hierarchies - victory to the Palestinian People!

And by the by, those who rare so quick to criticise HAMAS should remember that the Israeli state all but created them (through funding and other support), from the Muslim Brotherhood as a bulwark to FATEH when Gaza was occupied by Nasser. Sound like a familiar story?

tw


furthermore...

24.10.2005 21:18

please delete the second post as well. I hadn't noticed this the first time I looked, but 'ibn Sharmootah' is a (bad) tranliteration of the arabic for 'son of a bitch'. I'd say - even ignoring the rest of the post, which I thought at first was maybe a bad attempt at irony - that it's plainly racist.

tw


Yes I have an Anti-Zionist Mind

27.10.2005 10:07

1) I feel Jewish nationalism is wrong. I also feel Muslim nationalism is wrong. Both are religions and to base any kind of nation around them automatically excludes anyone of a different religion. However, Palestinian nationalism is about people not religion – people who deserve freedom from oppression and the right to their land.

2) Israel is not “wrong” because it is Jewish, but because it was created as a Jewish state in a land where the vast majority of people were not Jews. Over 450 Palestinian villages were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians expelled to create the state. The existence of Israel is fundamentally wrong and the ideal solution is one single secular state where Jews, Muslims, Christians and anyone else have equal rights of worship.

3) An element of truth in that – many countries were indeed formed by violence. However, that doesn’t make it right and since Israel was formed a lot more recently than most and the victims of its violence are still all too apparent, it makes the most obvious target.

4) No it’s not ok, whether the victim of violence is a Jew in Tel Aviv or a Palestinian in Nablus. However, is it surprising that many young Palestinians think violence is their only answer? And the balance of power is such that conventional warfare is simply not a possibility.

5) Huh?

6) So an American Jew can move to Israel despite never having been there in his life or having any family ties to the land, yet a Palestinian refugee who was born and brought up there can’t? That’s not an immigration policy, that’s just racist.

As for having no problem with countries that are anti-semitic, I will continue to fight against racism anywhere I find it.

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"Anti-zionists don't want a peaceful palestinian state next to a peaceful jewish state. They want muslims to flood into the jewish state, take over and form the majority, with israeli jews fleeing for their lives by the millions (or staying and probably dying, or being subjected to rule under an islamic majority that absolutely hates israeli jews.)"
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Very true, I don’t want two states, I want one unified state – as should have happened from the start. I don’t want a Jewish state, or a Muslim one. In all my time in the West Bank I expected to find lots of anti-semitism. In fact I probably heard less racism there than I do in Britain. Unfortunately the longer the Occupation goes on the more support hardline Islamic groups will get.

Eftah al bab