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Women Making Movies at the Boston Palestine Film Festival

This year’s festival features a remarkable 22 films by women directors. Many are attending and presenting their films this week at BPFF, including: Ibtisam Mara’aneh (Wednesday), Dahna Abourahme (Friday), Gabriella Bier (Friday), and Zeina Durra (Saturday). 

We asked a few of these directors whether being a woman has been an obstacle or an advantage and got these responses: 

“People think that a woman’s nature is more understanding and accepting to technical constraints. I am expected to compromise and find remedies for any ill situation. And the nature of the subject I cover in my films puts me at risk by having to face and negotiate with soldiers. Sometimes I find myself running…other times I apply my charm. On the other hand, being a woman also helps me feel more accepted by communities. Tolerance, depth, commitment, and long-term vision for me are feminine gifts which help me in my filming work.” Raneen Jeries 

“I have to admit that in my video work, being a woman has neither been an obstacle nor an advantage and so I don’t actually have a very interesting answer for you!” Basma Alsharif  

“I come from Sweden, a pretty progressive country…. I don’t want to be labeled as a woman filmmaker. I’m a filmmaker.” Gabriella Bier 

Manshiyya (USA Premiere) by Raneen Jeries (with Zochrot)

This documentary short features oral history testimonies of two Palestinians who were “internally displaced” in 1948 from the al-Manshiyya quarter in the northeastern sector of the Palestinian city of Yaffa (Jaffa), which was the largest urban center in pre-1948 Palestine.

Founded in the 1830s, by 1944, al-Manshiyya had grown to about 13,000 residents, of whom around 1,000 were Jewish and the rest Arab. Al-Manshiyya’s location - between Jaffa center to its south and Tel Aviv to its north - made it a target for an ethnic cleansing in 1948 by the Irgun Zvai Leumi (IZL), and a subsequent Israeli government decision to destroy the entire quarter in September 1948. Today, the only surviving structure is the Hasan Bek mosque.  

Paradise Lost by Ibtisam Mara’aneh

Q&A with director follows screening. Director also present for another of her films, 77 Steps, which screens directly after this one at 8:15 pm.

Fureidis (‘Paradise’ in Arabic), a small fishing village next door to Tantura, near Haifa, is one of the few Arab villages Israel did not destroy in 1948. Paradise Lost chronicles Mara’aneh’s semi-autobiographical quest to reconstruct, over stiff social opposition from family and elders, the lost history of the village where she grew up, especially why it was spared. Her quest for understanding her own identity—as a Palestinian, as a woman, and as a resident of the Arab village of Paradise (lost) within the Jewish state, takes the filmmaker much farther afield than she planned.

The Kingdom of Women by Dahna Abourahme

Q&A with director follows screening.

After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Ein al-Hilweh (the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon) was destroyed, and its men imprisoned. The Kingdom of Women documents the resilience, community spirit, and valor of the women from the camp during this period — how they rebuilt the camp and protected and provided for their families while their men were held captive. Weaving between past and present, animation and daily life, Abourahme honors women’s contribution to the survival of the Palestinian community in exile.

Love During Wartime by Gabriella Bier 

Q&A with actor Osama Zatar and director Gabriella Bier  follows screening.

Osama, a Palestinian sculptor from Ramallah, and Jasmin, an Israeli Jewish dancer, fall in love and try to build a life together against nearly impossible odds. Israeli legal restrictions prevent them from living together anywhere within greater Israel/Palestine, even as a married couple, so eventually they attempt to relocate to Berlin, where evermore bureaucratic regulations force them to live apart in waiting even longer. They both resort to their respective arts to cope with the separation, but it takes a heavy toll and at times threatens their marriage.

Love During Wartime takes viewers directly into Osama and Jasmin’s evolving lives as they struggle to find a place where they can succeed not only as a couple, but as individuals. Gabriella Bier’s expertly edited, verité-style visual commentary offers an uncannily intimate lovers’ tableau and an insider’s view of realities faced by many Palestinian families who cannot live together because they happen to reside on the wrong side of internal geographic red lines set by Israeli law. Determined to transcend the boundaries of prejudice, Osama and Jasmin valiantly fight against everything and everyone (including, sometimes, each other) to find metaphorical and literal neutral ground - outside Palestine.

The Imperialists are Still Alive! by Zeina Durra

Q&A with director follows screening.

With a title taken from Jean Luc Godard’s La Chinoise, this “messy soup of art, alienation, partying and politics”(Variety) follows Asya (Élodie Bouchez), a successful visual artist in post- 9/11 Manhattan. She meets and falls for a sexy med student (José María de Tavira) but finds herself completely distracted by news that a childhood friend has disappeared and may be a victim of a kidnapping in the Middle East. Javier finds Asya’s conspiracy theories overly paranoid-but nothing in Asya’s world is as it seems. Asya’s life is reflective of the themes of cultural fusion, and the complications and humor that arise simultaneously out of everyday life.

Diaries (USA Premiere) by May Odeh

Diaries chronicles the intimate daily lives of three young women living in Gaza who face a double siege: One is the Israeli occupation; the other, the quasi-religious authority that controls the torn city.

FULL PROGRAMME

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