Film Info:
Layaly Bader, The Way To Palestine, 1985, 6 minutes – In Layaly Bader’s documentary short, The Way To Palestine, seven-year-old Layla – who has been badly injured in an air raid – lives in a refugee camp outside Palestine. Layla and her friends describe how they imagine Palestine, despite never having seen it.
Mohanad Yaqubi, No Exit, 2014, 11 minutes – Like many people of his generation, Ali has decided to run away from the hardships of war. Along his way, he meets a strange person in a bus station: an encounter that will change his perspective.
Mona Benyamin, Trouble In Paradise, 2018, 8 minutes – Trouble in Paradise is a dysfunctional sitcom set out to explore humor as a mechanism of coping with trauma, pain, and taboos in relation to the Nakba and the Israeli occupation, by posing three sets of jokes ranging from the classical misogynistic genre to anti-jokes and culturally specific humor; in order to examine why Nakba jokes never fully evolved as a genre and entered the Palestinian mainstream. The main protagonists of the film are the artist’s parents who do not speak English and read the jokes from transliterated title cards and have went through the Nakba (1948) and the Naksa (1967) and never shared their memories from these major events.
Rosalind Nashashibi, Electrical Gaza, 2015, 18 minutes – In Electrical Gaza, Rosalind Nashashibi combines her footage of Gaza, and the fixer, drivers and translator who were her constant company, with animated scenes. She presents Gaza as under a spell; isolated, suspended in time, difficult to access and highly charged. She shows us Gaza as she experienced it in the quiet pause before the onslaught of Israeli bombardment in the summer of 2014. Nashashibi travelled to Gaza with producer Kate Parker and cinematographer Emma Dalesman.
Basma Alsharif, Home Movies Gaza, 2013, 24 minutes – In an attempt to describe everyday life where people are struggling for the most basic human rights, Home Movies Gaza introduces us to the Gaza Strip as a microcosm for a decline in civilization, finding perspective in a domesticity that is complicated, derelict, impossible to separate from its politics.
Total running time 66 minutes
aemi is proud to present this programme of artist films from Palestine curated by Shasha Movies, an independent streaming service for South-West Asian and North African (SWANA) cinema founded by Róisín Tapponi, an Assyrian Iraqi & Irish film programmer, writer and PhD scholar. Each film in this programme echoes the heart of a landscape steeped in history, struggle and hope. The artists weave together poignant narratives and oral histories, capturing the essence of a people’s unwavering spirit. The diversity of the films are a testament to the plurality of experiences and image-making in Palestine, speaking to a universal language of human resilience.
This programme was originally screened and curated for London Short Film Festival 2024.
It is in the spirit of aemi’s ongoing solidarity with Palestine that we screen this programme of artist films from Palestine. We hope this programme will give some time and space to acknowledge the vast and unknowable pain of what civilians in Palestine are experiencing right now. We continue to join others in the call for an immediate ceasefire and work in solidarity with those continuing to take to the streets in support of the Palestinian cause. We would also direct you to MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES IRELAND and Unicef Ireland both of whom have urgent appeals for help and encourage you to contribute what you can at a time when need could not be greater.
Free Palestine.
ABOUT SHASHA MOVIES
Founded in 2020, Shasha Movies is the independent streaming service for South-West Asian and North African (SWANA) cinema. We aim to formalise the space for artist film in and around the region, and present a carefully-curated selection of exclusive films to a global audience. Shasha Movies is owned and operated completely independently, by a small team of women from SWANA. All films are available in original language with English subtitles. Films are available to watch by all, anywhere in the world.
Shasha Movies was launched by Róisín Tapponi, an Assyrian Iraqi & Irish film programmer, writer and PhD scholar. Since she founded Habibi Collective in 2016, a community platform supporting women’s film and video practice from SWANA, Tapponi noticed the need for an streaming service for the best of our regional films, including artist cinema. After a successful crowdfunding campaign, Shasha Movies launched to eager supporters and cinephiles all over the world.
Each team member is incredibly active on the ground in the region, and present in both global film and art industries. Shasha Movies builds meaningful and long-lasting relationships with filmmakers and artists, supporting immensely behind-the-scenes and strategizing with them to develop a quality distribution plan across the film and art industries.
For her work with Shasha Movies, Tapponi was honoured in Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe 2023.
aemi is an Arts Council-funded organisation dedicated to the support and development of artist film in Ireland. For more details visit www.aemi.ie
