This program explores personal and political stories from Palestine and the diaspora — reflecting on memory, resilience, identity, and everyday life.

Four kids from the refugee camp in Bethlehem decide to visit the sea for the first time in their life. Director Biography -&nbsp;Ibrahim Handal<a href="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/585/156/original/0030e1245a-headshot.jpg?1715280519" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/585/156/thumb/0030e1245a-headshot.jpg?1715280519" style="border: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-language-override: inherit; font-size: 12.95px; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; display: inline; height: auto; max-width: 100%; position: relative; float: left;" width="223"></a>Ibrahim Handal is a cinematographer and filmmaker whom graduated in Cinematography in 2019 from Dar Al-Kalima University. He worked as a Cinematographer on several short films: A short film about a Chair (2024 Officially selected in Slamdance) Blood Like Water by Dima Hamdan (2023 Officially selected in Galway Film Fleadh ) A short film about Kids ( 2023 Officially selected in Clermont Ferrand and POFF shorts) Bethlehem 2001 (2020, Officially selected in Locarno, Clermont Ferrand, Busan and many others) AMBIENCE by Wissam Al Jafari (2019, Cannes Cinéfondation winner), SAWSAN (2019), BETWEEN YOU AND ME (2020). He also worked on several feature film productions in Palestine in the camera and lighting departments. Ibrahim is in development of his first feature film. Director StatementAs a young Palestinian cinematographer born and raised in Bethlehem under occupied territory, the experience of getting to the sea was always one of the rare to go there cause it all depends on the military permission to cross to the occupied land.Despite the wonderful feeling being next to the sea and having this moment of relaxiation as normal human needs, all the circumstance on the regular basis I don’t think all the time going to sea as I am not allowed to go there under specific military papers, checkpoints and even being checked by any random military on the way to experience what’s called a ‘vacation’A short film about Kids is light hearted film attempt to reflect on this wonderful moment of these kids from a refugee camp with their desire with all innocent, excitement and even with small unintentional mistakes as little kids trying to go on the occupied part to have a day in the sea as normal humans.

A Short Film About Kids

Four kids from the refugee camp in Bethlehem decide to visit the sea for the first time in their life.

After building a life in New York City, Nassib returns to his Palestinian hometown of Shefa-’Amr after 50 years to revive an ancestral garden. Filmmaker Hana captures her whole family’s search for belonging as she intimately films the rituals and practices around their first olive harvest. Director Biography -&nbsp;Hana Elias<a href="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/471/405/original/b813a73cc3-headshot.jpg?1691761460" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/471/405/thumb/b813a73cc3-headshot.jpg?1691761460" width="240" style="border: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-language-override: inherit; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; display: inline; height: auto; max-width: 100%; position: relative; float: left;"></a>Hana is a Palestinian-American documentary filmmaker and journalist. Her work explores the interrelationships between land, and identity in the Middle East and the United States. She aims to center the perspectives of people from underrepresented backgrounds as they imagine alternative realities and challenge hegemonic narratives. This ranges from her first film, 'The Rooftops of Jerusalem', a coming of age story about Palestinian parkour players in Jerusalem’s old city, and 'Holding Fire', about a grassroots movement of Muslim immigrant women fighting for their rights in the New York City political arena. She has been working on documentaries for the last 8 years, as a video editor, camera person, and associate producer and most recently was a Video News fellow at Democracy Now.&nbsp; ﻿Director StatementBy continuing to use agrarian practices that have existed for thousands of years, and planting a diverse range of native plants, my parent’s garden in Shefa’Amr is a testament to the richness Palestinian agrarian heritage. I started filming this project organically as I spent time helping my father in the garden. As a Palestinian-American, I hope that my experience as someone from the diaspora returning to learn about my family’s origin can relate to global land back movements, and generations of people in the diaspora similarly questioning identity and belonging. While we witness how Palestinian land is burned and poisoned, this film demonstrates the richness of Palestinian culture and love for the land that is unbreakable and lives deep in our bones. Asmahan Bkerat (Producer)Asmahan Bkerat is a Palestinian-Jordanian documentary filmmaker. She started her career as a photographer and social justice advocate. Bkerat’s first short documentary “Badrya'' won the Jury Prize for Best MiniDoc at the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival. She is currently directing/producing her first feature- length documentary “CONCRETE LAND” and producing the feature doc “HARVEST MOON”, and “IF THESE STONES COULD TALK” alongside a few other short doc films. She is an alumna of Sundance, Hot Docs, IDFA, DFI, SDI, The Whickers, The American Film Showcase, Cannes Docs, Dhaka doc lab, DMZ, Doc Edge, AIDC and IMS.&nbsp; Anakha Arikara (Producer)Anakha Arikara is a documentary filmmaker from Bangalore, India. She began her career as a food journalist, before expanding to reporting on stories of women, culture, and technology at The Better India. Her first documentary short, “Aged and Confused” follows a foster youth as he ages out of foster care in New York City. As an editor, her work has been featured on Al Jazeera and The Kitchn. Anakha is currently based in New York City, where she is a production manager at Story Syndicate, a production company focusing on premium documentary content.&nbsp; <a href="https://hana-elias.com/wwb&nbsp;" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://hana-elias.com/wwb&nbsp;</a>

Where the Wind Blows

Nassib returns to his Palestinian hometown for the first time in 50 years to revive an ancestral garden, and to search for a sense of belonging.

American-born teen, Rima the Lost One, unites with her great-grandmother, also named Rima, on a time-travel journey to 1930s Palestine. After clashing with her modern-ish Mom on vacation, Rima the Lost One finds herself warped through a portal that takes her to the present of her ancestors. Rima the Lost One must navigate her ancestral homeland, a place she’s never known. She desperately looks for a way home, aka the present, the place she originally desired to escape from. Director Biography -&nbsp;Reem Jubran<a href="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/614/555/original/01b1e19c7f-headshot.jpg?1706422573" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img src="https://filmfreeway-production-storage-01-connector.filmfreeway.com/press_kits/headshots/002/614/555/thumb/01b1e19c7f-headshot.jpg?1706422573" width="145" style="border: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size-adjust: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-language-override: inherit; margin: 0px 1em 1em 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle; display: inline; height: auto; max-width: 100%; position: relative; float: left;"></a>Reem Jubran is a filmmaker and visual artist based between Southern California and Palestine. Her photography and cinematic work explores identity, memory, and freedom. She completed several short film projects while achieving her B.A. in Film Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and continued her film education in Palestine, where she worked as Assistant Director on Palestinian narrative feature films. Today, she holds an MFA in Directing from University of California, Los Angeles.&nbsp;Her thesis film, Don’t Be Long, Little Bird is her first international project and co-production between her university and production in Palestine. Reem’s story and the making of this film is featured in the PBS Artbound Series documentary episode called LA Rebellion: A Cinematic Movement, where she represents a continuation of the legacy and solidarity between black, brown, and indigenous filmmakers at UCLA.&nbsp; Most recently, her latest short Don’t Be Long, Little Bird has been awarded the Gothams Student Showcase Award, sponsored by Focus Features. The story behind making Don’t Be Long, Little Bird was featured in an Emmy award-winning PBS one-hour documentary called, LA Rebellion: A Cinematic Movement, a documentary that featured Reem’s work as a continuation of the legacy of the ethnic film students that emerged during the LA Rebellion. Director StatementI wrote this movie asking myself a few questions. If I could meet my grandmother again, what would I say? What would I ask her first? Would we be friends?&nbsp;There are so many things I wish I could tell my grandmother today. This film allowed me to speak to her in many ways.&nbsp; It’s bringing to eternal life two things: the feelings I had when I first went to Palestine. And those feelings are how I wrote this film. While imagining talking to my grandmother again, in the form of meeting her when she was my age.&nbsp; It is also about truth. In a world full of victimhood complexities, where what used to be real has been deformed into polished and deodorized manipulative skits, the truth is often difficult to find.&nbsp; You are probably wondering, how does one find truth in a film that involves time travel and fictional depiction of a time that no longer exists? The answer to that is, truth can be found in the method of filmmaking, not within the story itself.&nbsp;This film is built off of truth and rich history. Behind this film are piles of personal stories, family histories, settler-colonial history, and folkloric Palestinian oral stories that existed pre-1948.&nbsp; As part of the diaspora, grandparents and elders serve as a direct line to Palestine. With that generation disappearing, a new, stronger connection is being developed. Behind that connection exists a flourishing fusion of oral histories, family relics, embroidery, epigenetics, and traditions, essentially everything behind an indigenous existence that is adapting to its modern surroundings.&nbsp; This film is an embodiment of the regeneration that is occurring presently to Palestinians in the diaspora. Theoretically, it fuses the past with the present, which dictates the future. Physically, and in a nonfiction sense, the making of this film required five young Palestinian women of the diaspora to return to their homeland, including myself. My great-grandmother’s headdress (Oqay) was worn by the character playing the great-grandmother. This process felt reflexive, as if we all stepped into the role of “The Lost One” while making this film.&nbsp; Another important element of the diaspora’s rebirth is identifying that Palestinian women, historically and presently, are not victims. The “The Little Bird” is the title of a Palestinian folktale from the published collection “Speak Bird, Speak Again” by scholars Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana. The tales are collected from a group of seventeen tellers, all householders and majority housewives who can neither read nor write. Palestinian folktale is primarily a woman’s art, and women at that time provided a large measure of creative artistic energy. The story of “The Little Bird” depicts courtship and female sexuality through the metaphorical body of a bird, who while being hunted and shot down (courted by a man) is where the procreative power of her being, her creativity and playfulness, is found from within.&nbsp; As the folk-tellers of Palestine say,This is my tale, I’ve told it, and in your hands I leave it. ﻿https://www.dontbelonglittlebird.com/

Don't Be Long, Little Bird

A young woman with a rebellious spirit accidentally jumps in time to the 1930s of Palestine, where she meets a similarly spirited young woman: her great-grandmother.

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