Palestine Spotlight

To complement the exhibition “The Legend of the Palestinian Sasquatch” at Centre CLARK, visual artist and programmer Amanda Boulos presents a selection of short films that explore different Palestinian narratives of displacement, defiance and nostalgia. The program is presented with the support of the Toronto Palestine Film Festival.

STITCHES

Deena A. Alsaweer / 2024 / Canada / 12 min / Arabic. A joyful dressmaker and his feisty niece defy a wedding dress ban by smuggling them as shisha (hookah) packing paper, but the harsh realities of war disrupt their plans.

THE POEM WE SANG

Annie Sakkab / 2024 / Canada, Palestine, Jordan / 20 min / Arabic. An experimental documentary that meditates on love and longing — the love of one’s family and the longing for one’s home, contemplated through overcoming the trauma of loss of family home and of forced migration, transforming lifelong regrets into a healing journey of creative catharsis and bearing witness.

BAQ’A: THE OPEN VALLEY

Youssef Mutawe / 2023 / Canada, Palestine, Jordan / 13 min / Arabic, English. While struggling to understand his place as a second generation Jordanian–born Palestinian, Abood’s uncle returns from Canada with stories of his youth as a refugee following the Naksa.

DE-CLUTTER

Rimah Jabr / 2024 / Canada / 18 min / Arabic. In present-day Nablus, amidst the confines of a home masking an ant nest within its walls, Aya, a depressed young woman, is faced with a life-changing scholarship offer to study abroad and caught between the enticement of her dreams and the weight of potentially abandoning her lonely mother. As the discussions about the persistent ants unfold, long-suppressed emotions start to surface.

SOMETHING FROM THERE

Rana Nazzal Hamadeh / 2017 / Canada, Palestine / 7 min / Arabic, English. A reflection on the substance of our original lands. How does connection to land change after uprooting and in diaspora? How does matter come to embody our memories and defy official histories? This short film considers the complicated implications of fighting to belong to a land after displacement.