15th ANNUAL HOUSTON PALESTINE FILM FESTIVAL
After a two year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Houston Palestine Film Festival is back!
Friday, July 22 - 7:00 PM | Midtown Arts & Theatre Center Houston (MATCH)
Short: From the Mountain (19 min) | Faisal Attrache
The fiery leader of the Great Syrian Revolt of 1925 fights to keep the flame of revolution alive in exile.
Feature: Farha (92 min) w/ special guest appearance | Darin Sallam
A 14-year-old girl in 1948 Palestine watches from a locked pantry as catastrophe consumes her home, in this bold debut from Darin J. Sallam
Saturday, July 23 - 5:00 PM | Midtown Arts & Theatre Center Houston (MATCH)
Fedayin, Georges Abdallah's Fight (81 min) w/ special guest appearance | Collectif Vacarmes Films
Fedayin, Georges Abdallah's fight traces the journey of a Lebanese man, committed to the Palestinian struggle in the midst of the Lebanese civil war. From the Nakba (1948) to Black September (1970) in Jordan, then the Israeli occupation of Lebanon (1982), from the Palestinian refugee camps that forged his conscience, to the international mobilization for his release, we discover the man who became one of the oldest political prisoners in Europe.
We follow his involvement in the Palestinian resistance during the Lebanese war and then in Europe within the FARL (Lebanese revolutionary armed fractions). Then we find him in France where he was arrested in 1984 and convicted of complicity in the political executions of representatives of the United States and Israel.
Georges Adballah has been eligible for release since 1999 and has entered his 37th year of detention, making him one of the oldest political prisoners in Europe. Beyond the judicial and political history that characterizes the course of George Abdallah, the film traces his life through a series of interviews in Lebanon, meeting his family, his relatives and former companions of struggle, but also in Europe with his lawyer, his supporters and people who have been with him.
Saturday, July 23 - 7:30 PM | Midtown Arts & Theatre Center Houston (MATCH)
200 Meters (96 min) w/ special guest appearance | Ameen Nayfeh
Mustafa, a Palestinian construction worker, lives 200 meters away from his wife Salwa and their children in villages separated by the Israeli border wall. Though his family are all Israeli citizens, Mustafa refuses to obtain a permit to live with them. Unwilling to succumb to what he believes are unjust laws, he instead uses his work permit to visit daily. However, one day he gets a call every parent dreads: his son has been injured and brought to the hospital. Rushing to cross the Israeli checkpoint, Mustafa is denied on a technicality. Stopping at nothing to reach his child, a 200 meter distance becomes a 200 kilometer odyssey, as the increasingly desperate Mustafa attempts to smuggle himself to the other side of the wall. Featuring a magnetic central performance by Ali Suliman, Ameen Nayfeh’s debut feature film expertly casts "one man’s story as a reflection of a collective experience" (Variety) while maintaining the tender family drama at its core.
