Palestine Film Festival

* A middle class Palestinian family’s home is invaded and occupied by Israeli troops. The father, a well-educated teacher, struggles to retain his dignity and the support of his family, which is subjected to increasing levels of stress. * Rana wakes to an ultimatum delivered by her father: she must either choose a husband from a list of eligible men, or accompany her father abroad. With only 10 hours to find her boyfriend in occupied Jerusalem, Rana sneaks out of her father's house to find her forbidden love, Khalil. Just two of the 35 films in the two-week Palestine Film Festival that runs in London from today until May 6. The quality and variety of the festival is a mark of its growth since its birth in 1999, when 15 films were featured. “We have increasingly sought to expand the festival’s audience, beyond students and academic(s) and those with a specific interest in the region, so as to bring the contents of the festival to a new and possibly less informed public,” says co-organiser Nick Denes. The choice of London’s Barbican Centre as the venue for the first week of the festival underlines the drive to broaden the audience and “to place the Festival on the cinema calendar in the capital.” “We hope that the festival will enrich people’s understanding of the Palestine question and leave them asking more questions than before,” he says. An indication of the way the event creates interest, he explains, is the frequency with which members of the audience ask if they can screen the film they have just seen in their own community, school or college. Denes and fellow organiser Khaled Ziada are not afraid of controversy (Israel’s Education and Culture Ministry forbids public screenings of Slaves of Memory) or including films that address the Palestinian question from a perspective other than that of the Palestine Society at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (the festival is organised by the Palestine Film Foundation, a programme of the Society). “Our only ‘red lines’ are that we will not show work that is in any way racist or informed by a racist approach to Palestine,” Denes told OneWorld UK. Films by Palestinians are proliferating, but the Festival also includes works by Israeli, Swedish and Dutch film-makers. “There is a young generation of Palestinian film-makers – many of whom are included in the festival – whose work in animation, documentary and experimental film is extremely accomplished and which heralds a new and potentially prolific era of Palestinian film,” says Denes. Have the organisers had any problems with pro-Israeli groups? “No problems yet!”, says Denes. “We anticipate no reason for pro-Israel groups to target the festival, and hope that the more aggressive of these groups will think twice before seeking to disrupt a festival that as a point of fact includes more than a dozen films by Israeli citizens.” * The festival runs alongside a five-day festival (26-30 April) of radical and independent film and talk – the Indymedia Middle East Film Festival - which also includes films about Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Israel; at the RampART Creative Centre, 15-17 Rampart Street, E1 Links: Palestine Film Foundation Barbican OneWorld Events in London

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