Palestinian Film Calendar

Screenings by, about and related to Palestine in the New York City area and limited online engagements.

No Other Land
Jan
31
to Feb 20

No Other Land

A chronicle of the Israeli military’s incremental expulsion of the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta — home to 20 ancient Palestinian villages — in this tightly focused, urgent documentary.

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ONLINE: Gaza Mon Amour
Feb
12
to Feb 19

ONLINE: Gaza Mon Amour

An old fisherman falls in love with Siham, a woman who works at the market, and decides he wants to finally get married. One day, he finds an ancient statue of Apollo in his fishing nets, a discovery that he feels will change his life.

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Bye Bye Tiberias (+ Q&A)
Feb
14

Bye Bye Tiberias (+ Q&A)

Leaving her village to follow her dream of becoming an actress, Hiam Abbass also left behind her mother, grandmother and seven sisters. Thirty years later, her filmmaker daughter Lina returns with her to journey through the vanished places among the scattered memories of four generations of daring Palestinian women.

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Notes on Displacement
Feb
14
to Feb 20

Notes on Displacement

By following a family across the Balkan route, a Palestinian director plunges into the horror of exile in a desperate need to recover his lost memories.

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No Other Land
Feb
15
to Feb 17

No Other Land

A chronicle of the Israeli military’s incremental expulsion of the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta — home to 20 ancient Palestinian villages — in this tightly focused, urgent documentary.

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Infiltrators / Mutasalilun
Feb
15
to Feb 16

Infiltrators / Mutasalilun

Artist Khaled Jarrar shadows West Bank residents as they search for ways to bypass the highly militarized Israeli apartheid wall that separates them from Jerusalem.

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Gaza is Our Home
Feb
16

Gaza is Our Home

With over 150 of his family members trapped in the Gaza Strip, and the agonizing losses of over 33 loved ones, Monear immediately set on a mission to share their stories with the world.

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No Other Land
Feb
18

No Other Land

A collective of Palestinian and Israeli activist/filmmakers chronicle the Israeli military’s incremental expulsion of the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta — home to 20 ancient Palestinian villages — in this tightly focused, urgent documentary.

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No Other Land
Feb
21
to Feb 23

No Other Land

  • Alamo Drafthouse - Downtown Brooklyn (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

A chronicle of the Israeli military’s incremental expulsion of the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta — home to 20 ancient Palestinian villages — in this tightly focused, urgent documentary.

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No Other Land
Feb
21
to Feb 27

No Other Land

A collective of Palestinian and Israeli activist/filmmakers chronicle the Israeli military’s incremental expulsion of the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta — home to 20 ancient Palestinian villages — in this tightly focused, urgent documentary.

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Gaza Surf Club
Feb
21

Gaza Surf Club

Against a background of occupation and joblessness, a small handful of Palestinians experience a slice of freedom riding one of a few dozen surfboards smuggled into the territory in recent decades.

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The Palestine Exception
Feb
22

The Palestine Exception

As students across the country organize protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, decades-long taboos in academia around criticism of Israel–the “Palestine exception”–are shattered. This film features professors and students as they join calls for a ceasefire and divestment from companies that do business with Israel and face waves of crackdown from administrators, the media, the police and politicians. 

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Slingshot Hip Hop (+ Q&A)
Feb
22
to Feb 24

Slingshot Hip Hop (+ Q&A)

Slingshot Hip Hop documents the birth of the hip hop scene in Palestine, braiding together the stories of young artists living under occupation inspired to speak out by voices like 2Pac and Chuck D.

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The Palestine Exception
Feb
23

The Palestine Exception

As students across the country organize protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, decades-long taboos in academia around criticism of Israel–the “Palestine exception”–are shattered. This film features professors and students as they join calls for a ceasefire and divestment from companies that do business with Israel and face waves of crackdown from administrators, the media, the police and politicians. 

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Slingshot Hip Hop
Feb
24

Slingshot Hip Hop

Slingshot Hip Hop documents the birth of the hip hop scene in Palestine, braiding together the stories of young artists living under occupation inspired to speak out by voices like 2Pac and Chuck D.

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Gaza Surf Club
Feb
25

Gaza Surf Club

Against a background of occupation and joblessness, a small handful of Palestinians experience a slice of freedom riding one of a few dozen surfboards smuggled into the territory in recent decades.

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Gaza is Our Home
Feb
25

Gaza is Our Home

As the onslaught of the 2023 invasion of Gaza ensued, a slideshow of Monear’s trip in 2021 to his family’s homeland of Gaza was auto-generated on his iPhone’s photo album…

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No Other Land
Feb
26
to Feb 27

No Other Land

A chronicle of the Israeli military’s incremental expulsion of the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta — home to 20 ancient Palestinian villages — in this tightly focused, urgent documentary.

View Event →
No Other Land
Feb
26

No Other Land

A collective of Palestinian and Israeli activist/filmmakers chronicle the Israeli military’s incremental expulsion of the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta — home to 20 ancient Palestinian villages — in this tightly focused, urgent documentary.

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ONLINE: Lyd (+ Q&A)
Feb
7

ONLINE: Lyd (+ Q&A)

This feature-length, sci-fi documentary shares multiple pasts, presents, and futures of the city of Lyd in Palestine/Israel. From the perspective of the city herself, voiced by Palestinian actress Maisa Abd Elhadi, the viewer is guided through the lifespan of a five-thousand-year-old city and its residents.

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From Ground Zero
Feb
6

From Ground Zero

  • 876 Riverside Drive New York, NY, 10032 United States (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

The combined work of 22 artists living in a besieged Gaza Strip, this omnibus film provides a contextualizing and critically important look beyond the brutal livestream. Organized by the Mashawari Fund for films and filmmakers in Gaza.

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No Other Land
Jan
12

No Other Land

The year’s most urgent and devastating documentary is this major work of vérité, the result of a collaboration between a group of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers and activists who form a collective. Filmed over the course of five years, No Other Land gives an up-close-and-personal account of the Israeli military’s destruction of Masafer Yatta, a group of southern West Bank Palestinian villages whose homes and schools are leveled for the construction of military training ground, displacing the communities’ lifelong inhabitants.

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ONLINE: From Beirut...To Those Who Love Us
Jan
7
to Jan 29

ONLINE: From Beirut...To Those Who Love Us

A short video diary, recorded a few days after the outbreak of war in 2006. The singing, gradually fading under the sound of gunfire and sirens outside, turns to fear. This film is a means of conveying a voice, of evoking the displaced, the dead, the martyrs, and the wounded. Pain and dignity are etched on the silent faces that pass before us.

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ONLINE: Faces Applauding Alone
Jan
7
to Jan 29

ONLINE: Faces Applauding Alone

What is the time between the wreckage and the ruins? What did Ariel Emuel do hours after he and his plane returned safely? When faces lose their memory, ghosts wake up again, and I lose my funeral.

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ONLINE: Untitled (To Lebanese Citizens)
Jan
7
to Jan 29

ONLINE: Untitled (To Lebanese Citizens)

During the July 2006 war, while warships were evacuating foreigners and dual Lebanese nationals fleeing Lebanon, the State of Israel intercepted the broadcast of the Voice of the People radio station, to send an audio message to Lebanese citizens.

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ONLINE: (Posthumous)
Jan
7
to Jan 29

ONLINE: (Posthumous)

Following on from the 2006 Israeli aggression on Lebanon, the filmmaker tries to film the destruction of Beirut. We witness a city deserted by life, and ghostly characters who, featured in his earlier films, talk about living through such a war.

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ONLINE: They Do Not Exist
Jan
7
to Jan 29

ONLINE: They Do Not Exist

This film revolves around the bombing and destruction of most parts of the Nabatieh Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon, as well as the story of a girl who sends a simple gift to a guerrilla fighter.

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ONLINE: Bint Jbeil 1 - Mohammed - South Lebanon
Jan
7
to Jan 29

ONLINE: Bint Jbeil 1 - Mohammed - South Lebanon

Filmed during the July 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, this short video provides a fascinating account of the daily lives of Lebanese people during and immediately after the war. Far from the bombast of the media, the tragedy of war is portrayed with compassion, simplicity and even humor.

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ONLINE: Scenes from the Occupation in Gaza
Jan
7
to Jan 29

ONLINE: Scenes from the Occupation in Gaza

The film documents the oppressive measures of the Israeli occupation against Palestinian citizens in Gaza, and presents examples of the Palestinian people’s resistance to the occupation forces. Abu Ali discovers a revolutionary cinematic language that captures the feelings of the characters being filmed.

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From Ground Zero
Jan
2
to Jan 16

From Ground Zero

From Ground Zero is an anthology project comprised of 22 short films created by filmmakers from Gaza. Launched by renowned Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi, the initiative was created during the current 2023/2024 conflict and aims to provide a platform for young Palestinian artists to express themselves through their craft.

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ONLINE: The Diary of a Sky
Dec
27
to Dec 30

ONLINE: The Diary of a Sky

The Diary of a Sky unfolds an atmospheric symphony of violence over Beirut, revealing the haunting fusion of incessant Israeli military flights and the hum of generators during blackouts. This video essay plunges viewers into a chilling chronicle of daily life transformed by the weaponization of the air, where the terror of repeated incursions becomes a disconcertingly banal backdrop.

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ONLINE: A Stone's Throw
Dec
27
to Dec 30

ONLINE: A Stone's Throw

Amine, a Palestinian elder, is exiled twice from land and labour. He is displaced from his birthplace, Haifa, seeking refuge in Beirut, and again to Zirku Island for work on an offshore oil platform and work camp in the Gulf.

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ONLINE: O, Persecuted
Dec
27
to Dec 30

ONLINE: O, Persecuted

O, Persecuted turns the act of restoring Kassem Hawal’s militant Palestinian film Our Small Houses (1974) into a performance possible only through film. One that involves speed, bodies, and the movement of the past into a future that collides ideology with escapism.

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ONLINE: Le Bateau de l’exil
Dec
27
to Dec 30

ONLINE: Le Bateau de l’exil

After living clandestinely in Beirut, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, left Lebanon aboard the Atlantis for a new exile in Greece and then Tunis. He talks about his destiny and the future of the PLO.

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ONLINE: A Fidai Film
Dec
27
to Dec 30

ONLINE: A Fidai Film

Archival fragments are repositioned and burnt through with searing red, laying bare the looting of Palestinian visual history as Aljafari reclaims and re-imagines footage plundered from the Palestine Research Centre.

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ONLINE: They Do Not Exist
Dec
27
to Dec 30

ONLINE: They Do Not Exist

The film depicts the brutal raids on the camps of Nabatiyeh, Ain al-Hilweh, Rashidiyah and the northern tower in southern Lebanon, as attempts to annihilate Zionism against the Palestinians.

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ONLINE: The Night
Dec
25
to Jan 8

ONLINE: The Night

A young man aspires to follow in his father’s footsteps and live up to his legacy of resisting the Zionist occupation. He reflects on his father’s journey from his arrival in Quneitra in 1936 to his death after the Zionist army captured the city.

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ONLINE: Laila's Birthday
Dec
18
to Jan 1

ONLINE: Laila's Birthday

Forced to change careers after government cuts, Palestinian judge Abu Laila becomes a cabbie. And in his new profession, chaos is the rule. One morning, Abu's wife, Um, dispatches him with the task of securing a gift and a cake for Laila, their soon-to-be 7-year-old daughter. But in a day marked by gridlock, unruly passengers and surprises at every turn, Abu's simple errand becomes a surreal adventure in the urban dysfunction of the West Bank.

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ONLINE: Zinco
Dec
17
to Dec 23

ONLINE: Zinco

ZINCO is an urban chronicle of the construction material used in building Palestinian refugee homes in Al Talbieh Camp in Jordan.

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Additional Resources for Discovering & Watching Palestinian Films

  • PFI is a Palestinian voluntary and independent non-profit organization established in 2019, The PFI was born from a shared desire among active film professionals who identify as Palestinians, to create an inclusive body with the mission to develop, promote and empower the community and industry of film in Palestine and for Palestinians worldwide and preserve its cinema.

    https://www.palestinefilminstitute.org/en/

  • Palestine Film Index is a growing list of films from and about Palestine and the Palestinian struggle for liberation, made by Palestinians and those in solidarity with them.

    https://rb.gy/9k6nwx

  • Discover feature films, documentaries and shorts on Palestinian life and history on Letterboxd, courtesy of the Arab Film and Media Institute.

    https://boxd.it/c5GNy

  • A free film archive of solidarity and struggle.

    https://www.solidaritycinema.com/

  • Films for Palestine is an ever-expanding collection of Palestinian and Palestinian-adjacent films The importance of situating oneself in a historical context in order to understand the unfolding 2023 genocide in Palestine cannot be overstated. These are crucial films—narrative, documentary, experimental. May we view them with our hearts and minds wide open, and for the knowledge we gain to be the foundation of our fight for a Free Palestine.

    https://www.filmsforpalestine.com/

  • The Arab Film and Media Institute (AFMI) seeks to continually change the narrative, share our stories, and foster understanding of our common humanity through art and storytelling. In this dire time, they created Palestinian Voices, an ongoing program of films that showcase the history, culture and people of Palestine.

    arabfilminstitute.org/palestinian-voices

  • An international institution for serving the Palestinian films and films about Palestine.

    palestinefilms.org

  • A film production and distribution company which aims to entertain audiences and enrich the cultural landscape by promoting stories that reflect the perspectives and experiences of Palestinians as well as other marginalized groups around the world.

    https://www.watermelonpictures.com/

  • A free platform streaming the best
    independent films from the Arab region. 

    https://www.aflamuna.online/