TPFF 2011 Festival Program
To purchase Tickets to TPFF:
- Order online by clicking the "Buy Tickets" button at the end of each film description in the programme
- Call 416 599 TIFF (8433) or toll free 1 888 599 8433 10 am to 7 pm daily
- In person at the at TIFF Bell Lightbox Box Office (350 King Street West, Toronto) 10 am to 10 pm Daily
- In person at the Box Office of the screening venue (opens half an hour before the scheduled screening time)
Ticket Prices to Film Screenings: regular $10, Student/Seniors $7
For more information email
tickets@tpff.ca
| Pomegranates and Myrrh
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Venue TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinema 1.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 7:00pm.
Director(s): Najwa Najjar.
Release Year 2009.
Film length: 95 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Awards: Youssef Chahine grand prix de cinema at Festival International de Cinéma d'Auteur de Rabat; Audience Award Best Arab Film Doha Tribeca Film Festival; Prize Television de Calicia Amal Film Festival Spain; Script Winner Screenplay Development Fund Amiens, France; Cinema in Motion San Sebastian Film Festival;.
Box office: 416.599.TIFF (8433).
Country of origin: Palestine.
Toronto Premiere, Ashraf Farah (Zaid) in attendance.
Description: Najwa Najjar’s feature length debut is set in present day Ramallah. Wedded bliss ends abruptly for dancer Kamar when her husband Zaid is taken prisoner for resisting the confiscation of his family’s land. Defying society’s taboos, Kamar returns to her dance where she is confronted with Kais, a Palestinian returnee from Lebanon and the new dance instructor who takes a special interest in Kamar. Life for Kamar becomes increasingly complicated as Zaid’s sentence is extended and the legal case against the land confiscation faces numerous obstacles placing the annual harvest and the family’s livelihood in danger. This beautiful film captures Kamar’s intensely personal turmoil as she becomes increasingly attached to Kais, and is torn between her desire to dance and society’s expectations of a prisoner’s wife.
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| Missing
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Venue TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinema 1.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 7:00pm.
Director(s): Tariq Rimawi.
Release Year 2010.
Film length: 3 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Awards: Best Short Film Franco Arab Film Festival; Third Best Short Film Beirut International Film Festival;.
Box office: 416.599.TIFF (8433).
Country of origin: Jordan, UK.
North American premiere.
Description: A window opens on a child who lives in a war torn area where he longs for his past peaceful life. Missing is a touching short stop-motion animation produced by Rimawi while completing a Masters degree at the International Film School of Wales.
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| Stray Bullet
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 2:00pm.
Director(s): Georges Hachem (Director in attendance with Ashraf Farah of Pomegranates and Myrrh for post-screening panel).
Release Year 2010.
Film length: 80 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Awards: Best Film Murh Arab Award at DIFF 2010; Best Screenplay Cairo International Film Festival 2010, Best Cinematography FIFF 2010.
Box office: 416.599.TIFF (8433).
Country of origin: Lebanon.
Toronto Premiere.
Description: Hachem’s debut film is a poignant socio-politically charged drama that unveils a family in turmoil in the midst of wartime tensions. It’s the end of summer 1976 in a northern suburb of Beirut. Noha (Labaki) is engaged to be married and her overbearing family is relieved she will not end up an old maid like her sister. Wedding preparations appear to be going to plan until, on that Sunday, fifteen days before the nuptials, Noha changes her mind. Noha’s self-actualization triggers a cascading set of events that fractures her and her family. Trailer
This beautiful film shot in a 1970s grainy aesthetic captured a best cinematography award and will be screened in 35mm format.
Related post.
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| Sahtain - Palestinian Brunch
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Venue Beit Zatoun.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 11:00am.
Box office: 416.599.TIFF (8433)..
Description: This year’s Sahtain – TPFF’s Traditional Palestinian Brunch – will feature a special live performance by award-winning composer, pianist and electronic musician, John Kameel Farah.
Classically trained in composition and piano performance at the University of Toronto and the Royal Conservatory, Farah received the Glenn Gould Composition Award twice during his studies. Toronto’s NOW Magazine named him as Best Pianist 2006 for his unique fusion of renaissance and baroque counterpoint, experimental improvisation, middle-eastern texture, ambient minimalism, Electronica and electro-acoustics. More recently, Farah was awarded the 2011 K.M. Hunter Artist Award by the Ontario Arts Council. To date, Farah has released two albums, Creation and Unfolding and is looking forward to releasing his next album in 2011. For more information on Farah, we invite you to visit his website and myspace page.
This year’s Sahtain takes place on Sunday Oct 2nd and is being co-hosted by our community partner, Beit Zatoun. At the Brunch with John Kameel Farah, you will enjoy a traditional Palestinian brunch catered by the highly reviewed chef and owner of 93 Harbord, Isam Kaisi. The TPFF Brunch has been a sold-out event in all previous years and tickets to this year’s event is selling very fast. We highly recommend purchasing tickets to Sahtain soon, before they sell out this year as well! Please note that this event is not included as part of TPFF 10 Card; to purchase a ticket, please visit our website.
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| Panel: Arab Women and Media Representation with Ruba Nadda and Nahla Abdo
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Venue Innis Town Hall.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 3:00pm.
Copresented by Now Magazine.
Description: The Toronto Palestine Film Festival and NOW Magazine are proud to present Arab Women and Media Representation, a panel discussion with filmmaker and director Ruba Nadda and Professor and Arab Feminist Activist Nahla Abdo. Moderated by NOW Magazine’s Entertainment Editor Susan Cole, the discussion will centre on the degrees of representation of Arab women in mainstream and alternative media and entertainment. By asking these critical questions of how Arab women are presented and represented in film and media from the perspective of an academic and a filmmaker, we hope that our audiences will have an opportunity to engage with our panellists and leave with a new way of looking at representation in media.
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| The Kingdom of Women: Ein El Helweh (Mamlakit Al Nisa'a Ein El Hilweh)
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 7:00pm.
Director(s): Dahna Abourahme.
Release Year 2010.
Film length: 54 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Country of origin: Lebanon.
Canadian Premier.
Copresented by Planet in Focus.
Description: Copresented by Boston Palestine Film Festival
The story of the women of Ein El Hilweh refugee camp between 1982-1984 is an important chapter in the history of Palestinian refugee women in Lebanon. After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the camp was destroyed and its men imprisoned. The film documents the community and organizing spirit of the women during this period, how they were able to rebuild the camp, protect and provide for their families while their men were held captive. Weaving between past and present, animation and daily life, the documentary focuses on seven of these women and honours how women continue to contribute to the survival of the Palestinian community in exile.
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| On the Heel Side
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 7:00pm.
Director(s): Riham Isaac.
Release Year 2011.
Film length: 3 min.
Country of origin: Palestine.
North American Premiere.
Description: One film made by the students of the Dance on Camera workshop in Ramallah, Palestine, during the 2011 International Dance Festival, and hosted by Sareyyet Ramallah / First Ramallah Group. Each group had 3-4 hours to shoot their film and about 4-5 hours to do the editing.
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| For the Resistance: A Popular Movement in Palestine
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 7:00pm.
Director(s): Sheryle Carlson.
Release Year 2011.
Film length: 32 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Country of origin: Palestine.
North American Premiere.
Description: Evolving from a history of uprisings (or Intifadas), the popular resistance in Palestine is a comprehensive and wide expression of the aspirations for freedom and dignity attempted by the Palestinian people. Speaking with Palestinian activists and intellectuals on the ground, the film shares concepts and ideas behind the culture and politics of the popular resistance. The film explores issues of human rights, women’s rights and resistance strategies as it follows villagers’ struggles against housing demolitions, Israeli settlements and building of the wall.
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| Zahara
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 9:00pm.
Director(s): Mohammed Bakri.
Release Year 2009.
Film length: 63 min.
Country of origin: Palestine.
Canadian Premier.
Copresented by imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival.
Description: Acclaimed actor/director Mohammed Bakri (Jenin, Jenin) turns his camera on his 78 year old aunt Zahara, a Palestinian woman from the village of al-Bane in the Galilee. Beginning with her childhood before the 1948 war, this compelling documentary takes us through the country’s turbulent history, as seen through the eponymous heroine’s eyes and the perspectives of those around her. As Zahara grows, we experience the violent establishment of Israel, subsequent life under martial law (1948-1966), and the radical transformation of Palestinian society from a majority to a disenfranchised minority in their own homeland.
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| Animal Farm
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 9:00pm.
Director(s): Nabeel Alraee and Michaela Miranda: Jenin Freedom Theatre.
Release Year 2009.
Film length: 10 min.
Country of origin: Palestine.
North American Premiere.
Description: TPFF pays tribute to the life and work of actor, director, activist Juliano Mer Khamis. Mer Khamis was the General Director of the Jenin Freedom Theatre, founded by his late mother Arna. The theatre in the Jenin refugee camp offers youth in the camp a safe and creative way to express themselves and build valuable skills. The film consists of interviews with the actors and Mer Khamis on their controversial production of Orwell’s Animal Farm interpreted with a Palestinian twist.
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| Checkpoint
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 9:00pm.
Director(s): Ruben Amar.
Release Year 2010.
Film length: 19 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Awards: Best Short Narrative Film, Crossroads Film Festival; Grand Jury Prize, Les Toiles de Court/Festival du Court Metrage en Corse.
Country of origin: Israel.
Toronto Premiere.
Description: A young Palestinian boy living in the Gaza strip accompanies his father on monthly visits to the ruins of a destroyed village. Though he doesn’t understand his father’s ritual, he feels he has a duty to help him.
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| Shout
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 7:00pm.
Director(s): Ester Gould, Sabine Lubbe Bakker.
Release Year 2010.
Film length: 75 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Country of origin: The Netherlands.
North American Premiere.
Copresented by Diaspora Film Festival.
Description: Best friends Ezat and Bayan are about to make the journey they have planned since they were children. Born in the Golan-Heights, Israeli-occupied Syrian territory, they’ve lived their lives next to the closed border with their homeland Syria. Now eighteen, they embark on the opportunity to cross the UN-monitored no man’s land to study in Damascus. Feeling a mix of emotions upon their arrival, Ezat and Bayan pursue their ambitions and enjoy their new freedoms in Damascus. What started out as an adventure to an unknown homeland leads to a dilemma that forces them to choose between their past lives in the Golan-Heights and their new lives in Damascus.
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| No Sharp Objects
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 7:00pm.
Director(s): UNRWA, Johan Eriksson.
Release Year 2010.
Film length: 39 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Awards: Best Film (Human Rights) We The People Film Festival London;.
Country of origin: Palestine.
North American Premiere.
Description: The film follows 15 boys – all aged 15 – who were awarded a trip to the US for being among the top students of the UNRWA human rights programme. Most had never been outside Gaza before. They have lived through war and the consequences of the siege. This incredibly touching film captures their awe as these boys experience for the first time hotels, airplanes, highways, skyscrapers and snow. More importantly, it captures the reactions of the people– students, politicians, diplomats, tourists – who meet these young ambassadors as they share their personal stories and aspirations for their future.
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| Enemy Alien
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 9:00pm.
Director(s): Aderer, Konrad (Director in attendance).
Release Year 2011.
Film length: 81 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Country of origin: United States of America.
Canadian Premiere.
Copresented by Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival.
Description: A Japanese American filmmaker confronts startling echoes of his own family’s World War II internment as he joins the fight to free a Homeland Security detainee. The documentary captures the dramatic two-year struggle to free Palestinian activist Farouk Abdel-Muhti, detained in a post-9/11 roundup of Muslim immigrants. This intimate, revelatory film takes on profound personal and historical implications as Farouk, his son and the filmmaker each pay a personal price for resisting wartime policies.
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| Full Court Press: Israel, Berkeley and the Divestment Resolution
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 9:00pm.
Director(s): Paxton. Anne.
Release Year 2011.
Film length: 30 min.
Country of origin: United States of America.
Canadian Premiere.
Description: The University of California at Berkeley recently saw the USA’s first public debates over the merits of a resolution advocating the divestment from companies militarily supporting Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. Using interviews, film from the Berkeley student senate proceedings, and supporting documentary footage from Palestinian territory and Egypt, the film is an enlightening exploration of the debates and boycott, divestment and sanctions as effective tools for ending the occupation and blockade.
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| This is My Picture When I was Dead
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 7:00pm.
Director(s): Mahmoud Al Massad.
Release Year 2010.
Film length: 80 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Awards: Winner of Muhr Arab / Documentary /First Prize, Dubai International Film Festival.
Country of origin: Netherlands, USA, UAE.
Copresented by Reel World.
Description: Athens 1983. It is reported that four year old Bashir Mraish was killed in the brutal assassination of his father, a top PLO lieutenant. What if this is not the end of his journey? Twenty-five years later this surreal film explores the life of Mraish – as a political cartoonist in Jordan digging deeper into his father’s struggle for the Palestinian Right of Return, and the sequence of events that led to his assassination. This experimental documentary pushes the boundaries of its genre to tell a very personal story of Mraish and his father and the political struggles of the Palestinian people.
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| 138 Pounds in my Pocket: The story of Hind al-Husseini
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 7:00pm.
Director(s): Sahera Dirbas.
Release Year 2009.
Film length: 19 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Country of origin: Palestine, Norway.
Canadian Premiere.
Description: In April 1948, following the UN partition plan for Palestine, the young teacher Hind Al-Husseini came across a large group of young children in Jerusalem. They were survivors of the massacre in Deir Yassin. Husseini took them in and established an orphanage in the Jerusalem home. Today, Dar al-Tifl al-Arabi is the largest Palestinian orphanage providing education to more than 1,500 pupils. The film is examines how Husseini and her successors filled in the gaps when the state was unable to provide adequate welfare.
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| Children of the Revolution
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 9:00pm.
Director(s): Shane O’Sullivan (May Shigenobu in attendance for Q&A).
Release Year 2010.
Film length: 90 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Country of origin: Ireland, Germany, England.
North American Premiere.
Copresented by Images Festival.
Description: Inspired by the student revolutions of 1968, Ulrike Meinhof and Fusako Shigenobu became the leading revolutionaries of their time, as leaders of the Baader Meinhof Group and the Japanese Red Army. Appalled by the killing in Vietnam, they worked with Palestinian freedom fighters to overthrow capitalism through world revolution. Packed with extraordinary archive footage, the film sees journalists Bettina Röhl and May Shigenobu explore the lives of their mothers, Ulrike and Fusako, from very different perspectives.
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| The Story of Milk and Honey
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 9:00pm.
Director(s): Basma Al-Sharif.
Release Year 2011.
Film length: 10 min.
Country of origin: Lebanon.
Canadian Premiere.
Description: Part of a larger project, this experimental short tells the story of an un-named individual who travels to Beirut to write a love story but fails. Through voiceover narration that weaves together images, letters and songs, a story of defeat transpires into a journey that explores how we collect and perceive information, understand facts, history, images and sound, and where the individual is to be found in the midst of the material.
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| (No) Laughing Matter (Blagues à part)
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 7:00pm.
Director(s): Vanessa Rousselot.
Release Year 2010.
Film length: 54 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Country of origin: France.
Canadian Premiere.
Copresented by Cinéfranco.
Description: Convinced that humour knows no frontiers, a filmmaker embarks on an unusual quest: to search for humour in the West Bank. At first she finds only disillusionment – “our whole situation is a joke” – but little by little she uncovers a vibrant culture of humour that defies conventional wisdom. From inane stories mocking the residents of Hebron – the classic butts of Palestinian jokes – to self-deprecating, political quips and bitter-sweet anecdotes about the absurdity of everyday life, her journey plunges her into a little known universe, one in which a glimmer of hope and humanity endure in the shadow of conflict.
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| Yellow Mums (Sufir)
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 7:00pm.
Director(s): Firas Khoury.
Release Year 2010.
Film length: 32 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Country of origin: Israel / Palestine.
North American Premiere.
Description: Nizar is a young, introverted Palestinian altar boy who is regularly teased by his peers. Nizar’s religiosity spurs his competitiveness as he decides to challenge the village children in traditional “breaking eggs” games during Easter festivities. His goal is to collect as many eggs as possible in order to sacrifice them in the village church to his beloved Jesus. However, this lofty goal creates a test of faith for Nizar as he weighs whether cheating is justifiable in light of his good intentions for the eggs.
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| The Incredible Juicer
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 7:00pm.
Director(s): Tahani Awad.
Release Year 2011.
Film length: 2 min.
Awards: Winner, UNRWA World Refugee Day Film.
Country of origin: Lebanon.
North American Premiere.
Description: This light-hearted film is based on the experience a family returning to their ruined home in Nahr el Bared refugee camp in Lebanon after an armed conflict.
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| Occupation Has No Future: Militarism + Resistance in Israel/Palestine
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 9:00pm.
Director(s): David Zlutnick.
Release Year 2010.
Film length: 84 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Country of origin: United States of America.
Canadian Premiere.
Copresented by AI Reel Awareness Film Festival.
Description: Through conversations with Israeli conscientious objectors, former soldiers, and Palestinians living under occupation, the film explores the Israeli social environment that creates heightened militarism and leads to attitudes of fear, exclusion, racism, and ultimately aggression; and examines the consequences of Israeli policies both for the Palestinian people as well as for Israeli civil society. Additionally, the film looks at the Israeli anti-militarist movement and Israeli youth refusing conscription, refusing orders, and choosing to partner with a growing grassroots Palestinian campaign of civil disobedience to defeat the occupation. This film aims to track the hope of a growing number of Israelis and Palestinians to live together, free from occupation, with peace and justice.
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| Into the Belly of the Whale
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Venue Jackman Hall, AGO.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 9:00pm.
Director(s): Hazim Bitar.
Release Year 2010.
Film length: 25 min.
Country of origin: Jordan.
Canadian Premiere.
Description: This gripping short film takes viewers underground and into the tunnel system that is a lifeline for Palestinians under siege in Gaza. However, in addition to bringing in essential goods from Egypt, the tunnel also brings harm to the smugglers who dare to make the dangerous journey 100 feet below the surface. Younis is one such smuggler who, on his last tunnel run, ends up trapped in the middle of the “Whale” tunnel after an Israeli attack. Stuck, Younis is left to ponder existential questions about fate and being alive underground. The tunnel also serves an analogy for Palestinian existence: trapped and suffocated, with no light at the end of the tunnel.
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| Hip Hop is Bigger than the Occupation
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Venue TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinema 1.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 7:00pm.
Director(s): Existence is Resistance, Nana Dankwa (Shadia Mansour, Mazzi of S.O.U.L. Purpose and others in attendance for Q&A).
Release Year 2010.
Film length: 90 min.
Film website or trailer: Click here.
Country of origin: United States of America.
Canadian Premiere.
Copresented by Manifesto Festival of Community and Culture.
Description: The film documents Existence is Resistance’s 10-day musical tour through Palestine to teach resistance through the arts. Staying in the heart of Balata Refugee Camp at the Yafa Cultural Center in Nablus, the group witnessed and experienced the day-to-day struggle of Palestinian life. Accompanying the filmmakers are acclaimed hip hop artists including: M1 of Dead Prez, Lowkey, Shadia Mansour, Marcel Cartier, Mazzi of S.O.U.L. Purpose, DJ Vega Benetton, SWYC, University of Hip Hop, Jody McIntyre and many more….
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| Keffiyeh: Made in Palestine
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Venue TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinema 1.
Date and time: 05/17/12 at 7:00pm.
Director(s): Faiveley, Benoit.
Release Year 2009.
Film length: 7 min.
Country of origin: France.
Canadian Premiere.
Description: A beautifully shot documentary about the last Palestinian keffiyeh (the iconic headscarf made famous by Yasser Arafat) factory in Hebron on the West Bank. Faced with Israeli military checkpoints, the complexity of exporting goods from the West Bank and now competition from Chinese keffiyeh manufacturers, the factory might not outlive its 76-year-old owner.
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No shows booked at the moment.
TPFF 2011 Pre-Festival Program
Tickets: Events are either "by donation" or tickets are available at the door
see individual events for details
For more information email
info@tpff.ca
No shows booked at the moment.
No shows booked at the moment.
No shows booked at the moment.
No shows booked at the moment.
