10TH ANNUAL BOSTON PALESTINE FILM FESTIVAL SET FOR OCTOBER 14 30, 2016

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1 Contact: Katherine Irving Katherine Hanna / Michael Maria pr@bostonpalestinefilmfest.org KIrving@mfa.org Web: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 10TH ANNUAL BOSTON PALESTINE FILM FESTIVAL SET FOR OCTOBER 14 30, 2016 Boston, Massachusetts, September 22, The Boston Palestine Film Festival (BPFF), co-presented with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, returns for its much-anticipated tenth year this fall. The festival runs from October 14-30, Since 2007, the festival has showcased Palestinian-related cinema to New England audiences to bring these narratives into the mainstream dialogue. Opening Film 3000 Nights by Mai Masri: Layal (Maisa Abd elhadi), a young newlywed Palestinian schoolteacher, is arrested after being falsely accused. She is transferred to a high-security Israeli women s prison, where she encounters a terrifying world in which Palestinian political prisoners are incarcerated with Israeli criminal inmates. There, she learns she is pregnant and faces a series of impossible choices. The first narrative feature by Palestinian documentarian Mai Masri (Children of Fire, Suspended Dreams, Children of Shatila, 33 Days, Beirut Diaries), 3000 Nights is based on extensive research into the condition of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons. A gripping tale of injustice and betrayal, as well as empowerment and the triumph of the human spirit. Jordan s submission for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, Screens 10/14 with director in conversation following film, and 10/16 (director invited). Closing Films This three-part sci-fi trilogy features new and existing films by worldrenowned, Jerusalem-born multimedia Palestinian artist, Larissa Sansour. In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain looks at the politics of archeology and how myths of the past can become historic interventions with the power to create nationhood. The work depicts a desperate contest to establish territorial precedence as a means of survival when all else is lost. Nation Estate: With its glossy mixture of computer-generated imagery, live actors and an arabesque electronica soundtrack, Nation Estate explores a vertical solution to Palestinian statehood. Palestinians have their state in the form of a single skyscraper: the Nation Estate. One colossal high-rise houses the entire Palestinian population now finally living the high life. 1

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3 Winner: o o Ecumenical Jury Prize, International Short Film Festival, Oberhausen, Germany (2013) Critics Award Rencontres Internationales des Cinémas Arabes, Marseilles, France (2013) o Stile libero award, Collecchio Video Film Festival, Collechio, Italy (2013) A Space Exodus vividly re-imagines scenes from Stanley Kubrick s 2001: A Space Odyssey, as Sansour floats through the universe on a mission to become the first Palestinian on the moon. A thrilling, surreal interstellar journey, Sansour's quirky short discusses themes of identity and displacement through a bold, imaginative journey. Of her work, Sansour has said: Sci-fi has an inherent ability to communicate the most fundamental ambitions of a people or a civilization in a way that is naturally inspired by, but never hampered or restricted by, a non-fiction reality. It lends itself well to framing the Palestinian predicament. Screens 10/30 with director Leila Sansour (Director, Open Bethlehem, and actress in the trilogy) in conversation following film. Featured Film Recollection, by Kamal Aljafari. The filmmaker returns to Jaffa, the city of his birth and childhood, through Israeli and American fiction films that were shot there going back as far as US Premiere. Screens 10/16 at 3:30 pm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with director attending. Featured Film The Curve, by Rifqi Adnan Assaf. Three displaced souls a reclusive Palestinian, a talkative Palestinian divorcee heading to Syria, and a Lebanese TV director meet by chance and embark on a road trip across Jordan in a VW minivan while discussing their troubled pasts, fears, nostalgic reminiscences, and hopes for the future. The most recent entry in a long catalogue of films from the Middle East on the experience of displacement, Rifqi Assaf s impressive debut feature is part road trip movie, part lyrical meditation on the perpetual journey that is exile. New England Premiere. Screens 10/20 at 7:30 pm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Featured Film The Idol, by Hany Abu-Assad. Mohammed, a young boy in Gaza, dares to dream big. He sings at weddings and drives a taxi to pay for his university studies. Even as the siege around Gaza intensifies, the prison around him ever more forbidding, Mohammed knows he has a rare gift his voice. An uplifting drama based on the incredible true story of the Palestinian singer Mohammed Assaf, the 22-year-old Palestinian refugee from Gaza who won the hearts of an entire region during the Arab Idol competition in Palestine s submission for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, Screens 10/21 at 7:00 pm and October 22 at 3:00 pm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Featured Film Speed Sisters, by Amber Fares. The Speed Sisters are the first all-woman racecar driving team in the Middle East. Grabbing headlines and turning heads at improvised tracks across the West Bank, these five women have sped their way into the heart of the gritty, male-dominated Palestinian street car-racing scene. Weaving together their lives on and off the track, Speed Sisters takes you on a surprising journey into the drive to go further and faster than anyone thought you could. Screens 10/28 at 7 pm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 3

4 Winner: Best Documentary, Adelaide Film Festival Audience Award for Best Feature, IFI Documentary Feature, 2015 Featured Film Open Bethlehem, by Leila Sansour. Open Bethlehem spans seven momentous years in the life of Bethlehem, revealing a city of astonishing beauty and political strife under occupation. Drawn from 700 hours of original footage and rare archive material, Open Bethlehem follows the story of director Leila Sansour as she returns to her hometown as it is soon to be encircled by The Wall. Chronicling Sansour s campaign to stop occupying Israeli forces encircling Bethlehem, this fierce and poignant story maps a determined and ongoing effort to unite Christians, Muslims and Jews in the desire for free access to the Holy City. New England Premiere. Screens 10/29 at 3:00 pm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston with director attending. Formats and Themes This year s festival features films in a wide range of genres, from shorts and documentaries to dramas, comedies, and experimental/video art pieces. Major themes of this year s programs are a Mai Masri Retrospective and Past, Present, and Future. Distinguished Guests at this year s festival screenings include: Mai Masri (dir Nights) is a Palestinian filmmaker who has directed and produced awardwinning films that have been broadcast on more than 100 television stations worldwide including PBS, BBC, Channel 4, France 2, RAI, RTBF, YLE, SBS, NHK, Aljazeera and Alarabia. Her films have received over 60 international awards. Her work is featured in a Retrospective in this year s festival. Filmography includes: 33 Days (2007); Beirut Diaries: Truth, Lies and Videos (2006); Frontiers of Dreams and Fears (ITVS, 2001); Children of Shatila (1998); Hanan Ashrawi: a Woman of Her Time (1995,) and Children of Fire (BBC2). She also co-directed, with her husband, filmmaker Jean Chamoun: Suspended Dreams (1992); War Generation-Beirut (1989) and several other films. Attends screening of her film on Opening Night, 10/14 at 7:00 pm, as well as two other films that comprise a Retrospective of her work on 10/15 at 1:00 and 3:00 pm. Kamal Aljafari (dir. Recollection) is a graduate of the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. His films include The Roof (2006) and Port of Memory (2009). He was a featured artist at the 2009 Robert Flaherty Film Seminar in New York, and in was the Benjamin White Whitney fellow at Harvard University s Radcliffe Institute and Film Study Center. In 2010, he taught film at The New School in New York, and between he was a senior lecturer and the program director for the German Film And Television Academy, Berlin. He is the recipient of many film prizes and art grants. Attends screening of his film October 16 at 3:30 pm. Amahl Bishara (dir. Take My Pictures for Me) is a professor of Anthropology at Tufts University. She lived in the West Bank from and volunteered with the Lajee Youth Center. Attends screening of her film October 18 at 6:30. Silvia Chiarantini (dir. Pop Palestine) is a traveler and lover of history and Palestinian culture. Attends screening of her film October 22 at 12:30 pm. Alessandra Cinquemani (prod. Pop Palestine) is a professional photographer. She was born in 1978 in Florence, Italy, where she also studied. Attends screening of her film October 22 at 12:30 pm. 4

5 Loretta Alper (co-dir. Occupation of the American Mind) has produced and/or directed several documentary films for the Media Education Foundation (MEF), including: Captive Audience: Advertising Invades the Classroom; Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class, and War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. In addition, she heads up MEF s media research team. Jeremy Earp (co-dir. Occupation of the American Mind) has produced and/or directed several films for the Media Education Foundation (MEF), including: Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire; The Mean World Syndrome: Media, Violence & the Cultivation of Fear; Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People; and Not Just a Game: Power, Politics & American Sports. Roger Hill (co-dir. Tawfiq s Reef) is a filmmaker who founded the documentary production collective MentalRev Productions. Hill directed MentalRev s first featurelength documentary Struggle: A Film on Voter Suppression and Election Rigging in US Presidential Elections. Hill worked as a trainer with the Voices Beyond Walls participatory media program in Gaza during the summer of Invited to attend screening of his film October 29 at 12:30 pm. Anas Hamra (co-dir. Tawfiq s Reef) was born in Qatar in 1991 and moved to Gaza, Palestine in Hamra is a Media Producer and New-Media Specialist, working with many local and international organizations and private sector companies. He is the founder of Red Media Productions for Multimedia and Information Technology Solutions in Gaza. Invited to attend screening of his film October 29 at 12:30 pm. Leila Sansour (dir. Open Bethlehem) is a filmmaker and producer, as well as the founder and CEO of Open Bethlehem. Her previous work includes the critically acclaimed documentary Jeremy Hardy vs. The Israeli Army. Attends screening of her film on October 29 at 3:00 pm and screening of the Larissa Sansour sci-fi trilogy on October 30 at 6:30 pm. The full program is available at About BPFF Since 2007, the Boston Palestine Film Festival has been introducing Palestine-related cinema, narratives, and culture to New England audiences. The festival has featured hundreds of compelling and thought- provoking films, including documentaries, dramatic features, animated films, rare early works, video art pieces, and new films by emerging artists and youth. These works from directors around the world have offered refreshingly honest, self-described, and independent views of Palestine and its history, culture, and geographically dispersed society. The festival blog features original interviews with filmmakers and related content. The Executive Committee works yearround on a volunteer basis to sustain the festival. For more information, or to schedule an interview with any of the invited guests, contact pr@bostonpalestinefilmfest.org. 5