Palestine film festival

THE LONDON PALESTINE FILM FESTIVAL 21 April to 5 May.

The London Palestine Film Festival, the largest of its type in Europe, returns for a second year to the Barbican, with a one-week programme of new works, rarely seen archive films and critically acclaimed hits of recent years - many introduced by special guests, filmmakers and actors.

The festival opens with a Gala Screening on Friday, 21 April of the documentary feature Massaker (2005, 98 min), introduced by the award-winning Egyptian novelist and cultural critic, Ahdaf Soueif, and followed by questions and answers with the films directors Monika Borgmann, Lokman Slim and Hermann Theissen. Massaker focuses on a largely forgotten humanitarian disaster of the 1980s when between 1,000 and 3,000 Palestinian civilians, mainly women, children and old people were murdered in the towns of Sabra and Shatila in the Lebanon.

Rashid Masharawi will attend the Closing Gala screening on Thursday, 27 April of his latest film Waiting (Attente) (2005, 90 min) a bitter-sweet meditation on the very process of making fictional cinema, blurring the line between documenting the plight of his people and the narrative obligations of his film. Masharawi's central conceit is that the inherent condition of Palestinian life boils down to waiting - at checkpoints, for news of relatives and friends, for money, for peace or for justice. Toronto Film Festival.

Two critically acclaimed features of recent years, which focus on Palestine and the region, will be screened during the festival, including Saverio Costanzos stunning Private (2004), followed by questions and answers with actor Mohammed Bakri, plus Ziad Doueiris charming West Beirut (105 mins, 1998).

Palestinian-Israeli actor/director Mohammed Bakri is also the subject of a double-bill of two of his films as director: Since You Left (2005, 60 mins) is an autobiographical essay which sees Bakri return to the grave of his former mentor, the writer and communist Emile Habibi. Jenin, Jenin (2002, 54 min) initially banned by the Israeli Film Board and still a source of controversy, witnesses the aftermath of the April 2002 Israeli occupation and partial demolition of the Jenin refugee camp.

Some Palestinian rarities showing during the festival include writer/director Elia Suleimans Chronicle of a Disappearance (1997, 87 min), an affecting portrait of what it means to be a Palestinian and the absurdity of life in the Occupied Territories; Eyal Sivans Jerusalems Borderline Syndrome (1994, 64 min) (Route 181; Izkor: Slaves of Memory; The Specialist) contemplates the sacred city of Jerusalem; Forget Baghdad: Jews and Arabs (2002, 110 min) by celebrated Iraqi/Swiss experimental filmmaker, Samir focuses on Iraqi-Jews who left Baghdad in the 1950s to live in Israel, when the political situation in Iraq deteriorated. The extraordinary Arnas Children (2003, 85 min) tells the story of Arna Mer Khamis, born Jewish and married a Palestinian, who spent her life campaigning for human rights. Arna opened a theatre in the Jenin refugee camp where, with her son Juliano, she taught children to express themselves through art. When Arna died of cancer in 1995, the theatre closed. Five years later, Juliano returns to discover what happened to Arna's Children.

Two films in the festival strand Palestine in the Archives reveal Palestine through rare archival footage: Palestine - A Peoples Record (1984 Dir. Kais al-Zobaidi 110 min) explores Palestine in rare archive footage dating from 1917 to 1974 in an historic account of Palestinian nationality. Kings & Extras: Digging for a Palestinian Image (2004 Dir. Azza el-Hassan 62 mins) uses little-seen 1970s and 1980s archival footage, together with a series of contemporary interviews with film-makers, archivists and historians, to explore the role of film-making and photography during this period. At the heart of the film is the search for answers about the loss of the central Palestinian cinema archive in Beirut during the Israeli occupation.

Programme details:
* Palestine Film Foundation
* Barbican.