HPFF 2008
FILM SCHEDULE
Friday, May 9th, 2008, 7:00 pm
Slingshot Hip Hop
Director Jackie Salloum
United States, 2008, 88 minutes
This exhilarating documentary from the emerging Palestinian Hip Hop scene, by Jackie Reem Salloum, is heartbreaking, humorous, and unlike anything else you’ve seen on contemporary life in Israel and Palestine.
A day in Palestine
Director Mary Ellen Davis, José Garcia-Lozano, Will Eizlini
Sweden, 2005, 58 minutes
Best Documentary, Saskatchewan FilmPool Cooperative
Scenes of everyday life in the occupied Palestinian territories with a dream-like feeling reminiscent of home-movies of the 60s. But instead of a day at the beach or in the backyard: a wall, an olive tree, a bulldozer, soldiers harassing grandmothers.
Concert following the screenings @ Warehouse Live
Hip-Hop from Palestine
60 Years – Commemorating the Palestinian “Nakba” (Catastrophe)
Warehouse Live
813 St. Emanuel St.
Hosted by Matt Sonzala of AustinSurreal.com and Houston Palestine Film Festival
Featuring:
DAM (from Palestine), Mohammad Al-Farra from Palestinian Rapperz, DJ Rhyme, H.I.S.D.
$10
All ages welcome.
Saturday, May 10, 2008, 7:00 pm
9 Star Hotel
Director Ido Haar
Israel, 2007, 78 minutes
Best Documentary Jerusalem Film Festival
Best Film: Human Rights Competition at Buenos Aires Film Festival
Presents – without rancor and with deep pathos – the irony of dispossessed young men who would normally be lauded for eschewing violence and striving to make a living, but find themselves building someone else’s future.” – Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
Post Film Reception hosted by FREE PRESS HOUSTON at Avante Garde, 411 Westheimer.
Sunday, May 11, 2008, 7 pm
Knowledge is the Beginning
Director Paul Smaczny
Germany, 2005, 114 min
Winner of 2006 International Prime Time Emmy for Arts Programming
Chronicles the creation of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, a collaboration between world-renowned conductor Daniel Barenboim and Palestinian writer Edward Said. It brings together young musicians from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia and Israel. Said has remarked that the orchestra was “one of the most important things I have done in my life.” For Barenboim, it’s a metaphor for what could be achieved in the Middle East.
Friday, May 16, 2008, 7:00 pm
Shadow of Absence
Director, Nasri Hajjaj
Palestine & Tunisia, 2007, 84 minutes
Winner of the Golden Muhr, Dubai Film Festival. This film explores the anxiety that Palestinians are experiencing, especially those uprooted from their land. It seeks to express the duality of life and death, homeland and exile, in Palestinian identity. Shot in many countries, including Lebanon, Syria and the UK, it talks about leading political and cultural figures, and ordinary Palestinians, subjected to massacres from 1948 until today.
Ya ana…Ya Haifa
Director Shady Srour
Palestine, 2007, 71 minutes
Best Dramatic Short in the Al Awda Festival, Ramallah.
Nabeel, a Palestinian journalist, is leading an impossible romantic relationship with Sama’a, a Palestinian refugee living in Denmark. She tries to bring him out of Haifa, so they can live as a normal couple far from political pressures.
Post Film Reception hosted by National Arab American Professionals – Houston Chapter.
Saturday, May 17, 2008, 7:00 pm
Collection of Palestinian and Iraqi Shorts
This is a shorts program. Films playing within the program include:
- Be Quiet (Sameh Zoabi, 19 minutes)
- Best Student Film, Aspen Shortsfest, Outstanding Performance by a child, Aspen Shortsfest, Best Film, Silhouette Short Film Festival, Third Place, Cinefondation award, What should be a simple journey is instead beset by the tensions of a politically charged atmosphere and militarized reality, each fuelling the struggle of a father bringing up his strong willed son.
- Land Confiscation Order (Larissa Sansour, 10 minutes)
- Sansour questions the “dream of a viable statehood” through a visual dictation of the story of her own family’s confiscated land.
- Ya ana…Ya Haifa (Shady Srour, 15 minutes)
- Best Dramatic Short in the Al Awda Festival, Ramallah. Nabeel, a Palestinian journalist, is leading an impossible romantic relationship with Sama’a, a Palestinian refugee living in Denmark. She tries to bring him out of Haifa, so they can live as a normal couple far from political pressures.
- The Shooter (Ihab Jadallah, 7 minutes)
- A day in Palestine (Mary Ellen Davis, 5 minutes)
- A Candle For Shabandar Café (Emad Ali, 23 minutes)
- Emad Ali’s own story is an epilogue to his film about the Shabandar Cafe and Mutanabbi Street – before and after they were destroyed. Founded in 1917, the Shabandar Cafe in Al Mutanabbi Street in the heart of the old centre of Baghdad, was a cultural landmark, where generations of Iraqis came to discuss and debate literature and politics. But in March 2007, a massive car bomb destroyed the Shabandar Cafe, all the bookshops on Al Mutanabbi Street and killed and wounded scores of people.
Sunday, May 18, 2008, 7:00 pm
Driving to Zigzigland
Director Nicole Ballivian
USA, 2007, 92 mins
Winner of Best Film Award at Amal Film Festival, Spain
Winner of Best Actor Award at Amal Film Festival, Spain
Winner of Audience Award at Arabian Sights Film Festival
A chronicle of a day in the life of a Palestinian cab driver in Los Angeles, Driving to Zigzigland portrays the social struggle of the Arab immigrant in post 9/11 America. Shot in Los Angeles and Palestine, based on true stories.
Post Film Reception hosted by Arab American Education Foundation.
