Friday November 24 * Noon - 10pm * FREE
Valentina Booking presents: a Palestinian Film Day
12pm -- The Wanted 18 (2014, 75 minutes)
In 1988, in a Palestinian town near Bethlehem, 18 dairy cows were purchased by the people of Beit Sahour from an Israeli kibbutz. This well-crafted, creative documentary explores the strange mixture of political complexities and bovine hijinks that were manifested by the town’s efforts to take dairy production—and fiscal resistance—into their own hands. The film uses stop motion animation and interviews to recreate an astonishing true story: the Israeli army’s pursuit of the 18 cows, whose independent milk production on a Palestinian collective farm was declared “a threat to the national security of the state of Israel.” The military forces attempt to confiscate the cows, but the townspeople of Beit Sahour hide their prized milk makers. The film interviews the citizens of Beit Sahour and Israeli military officials almost 20 years after the cow confrontation about their experience of the Intifada and what happened to the cows. What makes this almost fable-like story of a serious subject so unique is that—in addition to director Amer Shomali, who is from the town of Beit Sahour—the main narrators of the film are four playfully animated cows who journey from Kibbutz Hillel to Beit Sahour. We see the Intifada and the power of grassroots activism through their big bovine eyes.
2:30pm -- Gaza Surf Club (2016, 87 minutes)
Trapped in “the world’s largest open-air prison” and ruled by war, occupation, and political gridlock, a new generation of Gazans have found an instrument of survival and escape through surfing. Serving as one of the only areas of refuge in Gaza, these surfers have discovered and shared their hopes and dreams with the waves of the Mediterranean, hoping one day the answers to their wishes and possibilities of their futures come granted along its glimmering shoreline.
5:30pm -- 5 Broken Cameras (2011, 90 minutes)
“I’ll just keep filming. It helps me confront life and survive.”—Emad Burnat, Bil’in village, West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territories
5 BROKEN CAMERAS is a deeply personal, first-hand account of life and non-violent resistance in Bil’in, a West Bank village surrounded by Israeli settlements. Shot by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, Gibreel, the film was co-directed by Burnat and Guy Davidi, an Israeli filmmaker. Structured in chapters around the destruction of each one of Burnat’s cameras, the filmmakers’ collaboration follows one family’s evolution over five years of village upheaval. As the years pass in front of the camera, we witness Gibreel grow from a newborn baby into a young boy who observes the world unfolding around him with the astute powers of perception that only children possess. Burnat watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify and lives are lost in this cinematic diary and unparalleled record of life in the West Bank.
8pm -- Tale of the Three Jewels (1995, 112 minutes)
Yussef is a twelve-year old Palestinian child of the First Intifada. With his father is in prison and his brother a fugitive from the Israeli army, he lives alone with his mother and sister. Though his life is marked by violence, he lives in his imagination, often escaping from the refugee-camp into the Gaza countryside. While hunting for birds one day, Yussef meets Aida, a young gypsy girl who poses a daunting challenge, leading him into a perilous adventure. This lyrical and moving work was shot in the early months of 1994, while Gaza remained under Israeli military occupation, and was the first feature film ever to be shot entirely in the Gaza Strip.