Unprovoked Narratives – Film Screening
Date: Nov 10th & 11th
Time: 4-8pm
Place: Black Lodge – 3rd floor Art
Admission: Pay what you can. All proceeds will go to Islamic Relief Canada’s Gaza Medical Campaign.
Tickets can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/unprovoked-narratives-screening-and-fundraiser-tickets-749852518067?aff=oddtdtcreator
A film program celebrating the beauty of Gaza, its people, its struggle and its survival. The program aims to resist the demonization of this beautiful place, and has been lovingly curated by the Palestinian Film Institute (PFI).
The selected films cover a wide range of themes and genres, from personal stories of triumph and hope to thought-provoking documentaries shedding light on socio-political realities.
Together, they paint a landscape of stories, presenting an opportunity for viewers to engage with Gaza’s history and present.
The screening for this program will take place November 10th and 11th, from 4-8pm, in the Black Lodge on the 3rd floor of the Artspace building.
TakeHome BIPOC Arts House in conjunction with the Winnipeg Film Group, share these stories in a spirit of solidarity. Sharing and highlighting the beauty, humanity, and dignity of the Palestinian people. Honouring their unwavering spirit, in the face of undeniable oppression.
Admission is pay what you can and all the proceeds raised from these screenings will go to Islamic Relief Canada’s Gaza Medical Campaign, to aid relief efforts on the ground in Palestine.
Accessibility Info: The main entrances of the Art Space Building at Arthur St. and King St. have automatic door push triggers. The West side entrance off King St. has a wheelchair lift to access the main lobby. There are two washrooms on the 3rd floor that are private, locking, non-gendered washrooms. These washrooms do not have handrails or automatic doors. The 1st floor has non-gendered, multi stall washrooms. Washrooms on the 1st floor have wheelchair accessible stalls with handrails, but do not have automatic doors.
Day 1
Ouroboros (2017)
Experimental, 1h 17m
An homage to the Gaza Strip based on the eternal return. A journey following one man through five different landscapes marks the end as the beginning, forgetting as the way forward, and the failure of civilization.
Writer & Director: Basma Alsharif
Shujayya (2016)
Documentary, 20m
In Gaza, members of a typical family are thrown into disarray after a series of bombing attacks destroyed their home, killed some of the occupants and left others seriously injured.
Director: Mohammed Almughanni
Gaza Ghetto: Portrait of a Palestinian Family (1985)
Documentary, 82 mins
The first documentary feature made in Gaza, this now classic film puts today’s headlines into historical perspective. It focuses on life under military occupation in Jabalia, the largest of all Palestinian refugee camps. A child is born and a child dies, and we come to understand the impact of decades of war and displacement on daily life and family rituals.
We also meet Israelis personally involved: soldiers on patrol, settlers and government architects of the military occupation, Ariel Sharon, among them.
Directors: PeÅ Holmquist
Joan Mandell
Pierre Bjorklund
One More Jump (2019)
Documentary, 1h 13m
Gaza Parkour Team founder Abdallah has managed to escape Gaza. His friend Jehad still lives there, training young athletes for whom sport remains the only thing imbued with hope amidst the conflict. Is it better to leave to fulfil your dreams or stay and fight for your country? The question is the common thread running through this deeply moving account of sport, friendship, and exile.
Writer & Director: Emanuele Gerosa
To My Father (2008)
Documentary, 53m
“Those were days when people prettier, when eyes were filled with colour, even in black and white. What has changed – the camera, or the eye?” asks Abdel Salam Shehadah’s poetic homage to the studio photographers of the 1950’s – 70’s. Set partly in a refugee camp in Rafah, the film looks back at fifty years of Palestinian and Arab history, told through the photographs, reportage and the voices of these photographers today.
Director: Abdel Salam Shehada
Day 2
Condom Lead (2013)
Drama, 11m
A dream of the hope for intimacy and love in a brutal, divisive world.
Director: Tarzan Nasser & Arab Nasser
Ambulance (2016)
Documentary, 1h 20m
A raw, first-person account of the last war in Gaza in the summer of 2014. Mohamed Jabaly, a young man from Gaza City, joins an ambulance crew as war approaches, looking for his place in a country under siege, where at times there seems to be no foreseeable future. While thousands of things are published on the recurring violence in Gaza, the stories behind them remain hidden. Not this one.
Directed By: Mohamed Jabaly
Habibi (2011)
Drama, 1h 8m
Habibi, a story of forbidden love, is a fiction feature set in Gaza. Two students in the West Bank are forced to return home to Gaza, where their love defies tradition. To reach his lover, Qays grafittis poetry across town. Habibi is a modern re-telling of the famous ancient Sufi parable Majnun Layla. The full Arabic title is ‘Habibi Rasak Kharban,’ which translates as “Darling, something’s wrong with your head.”
Writer & Director: Susan Youssef
Scenes of the Occupation from Gaza (1973)
Documentary, 13m
A rare film by the legendary filmmaker Mustafa Abu Ali, one of the founders of the Palestine Film Unit, the first filmic arm of the Palestinian revolution. Shot by a French news team, the footage was edited by Mustafa in Lebanon to produce one of the earliest films on the occupied territory in Gaza. Scenes of the Occupation from Gaza employs experimental editing tech- niques to produce a cinematically and politically subversive film. The film won the prize as best film at the Damascus Film Festival in 1973 and was screened at multiple festivals. It was the only film produced by the Palestine Cinema Group, which in 1974 became the Palestine Cinema Institute.
Director: Mustafa Abu Ali
Gaza Calling (2012)
Documentary, 51m
Samer lives in Ramallah in the West Bank. His family lives in Gaza, one hour away. They have not seen each other for six years.
When Mustafa went for a visit to Gaza in 2006, he was 18 years old. He was never allowed to return – his mother Hekmat has been fighting to see him again for seven years now.
Two families torn apart. They share the same “crime”: being registered with a Gaza address in their Identity Cards. Under Israeli rule, they are considered “infiltrators” in their own country. Their lives have turned into a permanent struggle. Parents can only talk to their sons on the phone; sisters can only see their brothers on the internet – mothers and their children fighting to be together at last…
Director: Nahed Awwad