November 13 – 26, Barbican Centre, Barbican Cinema on Demand, LPFF Vimeo on Demand.
Despite the pandemic uncertainties, the annual London Palestine Film Festival (LPFF) returns with arguably the best programme of films in years. LPFF 2020 is excited to offer a mix of both in-cinema screenings and online streams of the latest films about Palestine.
This year has brought an astonishing number of high-production and thought-provoking features, documentaries and artist moving image straight off the Venice, Berlin, and Nyon red carpets. Almost entirely made up of UK premieres, romantic dramas (Beyond Heaven Earth; Gaza Mon Amour), intricate investigative works (Letter to a Friend; Triple Chaser), dark humour (200 Metres), innovative cinema (An Unusual Cinema) and hard-hitting documentaries (Western Arabs; Ibrahim, A Fate to Define) the programme is sure to satisfy audiences by challenging political narratives and cinematic forms.
LPFF is very happy to present four in-cinema screenings at two of Barbican's flagship venues, Cinema 1 and the Theatre. In line with government guidelines, the Barbican has measures in place throughout the centre to keep audiences and staff safe, socially distanced and comfortable.
Taking advantage of the web as platform, special events will include exclusive conversations with prominent artists speaking from their respective bases, such as Emily Jacir, Eyal Weismann, Michael Rakowitz, Nat Muller, Kamal Aljafari and many others.
PROGRAMME
An Unusual Summer (dir. Kamal Aljafari, 2020, 79 mins)
November 13 at The Barbican, Barbican Cinema 1
Following an act of vandalism, the father of the Palestinian filmmaker decides to install a surveillance camera to record the scenes taking place in front of his house. Coloured, serrated images, punctuated with stolen sounds and a child's observations, Aljafari creates a mechanical diary that scrolls along the screen presenting the audience with a personal and eminently political fresco.
Gaza Mon Amour (dir. Tarzan and Arab Nasser, 2020, 90 mins)
November 15 at The Barbican, Barbican Cinema 1 (also available on Barbican Cinema on Demand)
This fictional film combines the sweet universal sentiments of love, with the strange, yet true, story of the Apollo statue lifted from the Gazan sea. Sixty-year-old fisherman Issa (Salim Daw) is secretly in love with Siham (Hiam Abbass), a dressmaker at the market. Will Issa declare his love for Siham, or will he be swallowed by the adverse situation he is living in?
200 Meters (dir. Ameen Nayfeh, 2020, 86 mins)
November 21 at The Barbican, Barbican Theatre (also available on Barbican Cinema on Demand)
Up-and-coming filmmaker Ameen Nayfeh's first-feature presents the life-threatening absurdities of life along the infamous wall, with a perfect balance of family warmth and political tension.
Between Heaven and Earth (dir. Najwa Najjar, 2019, 93 mins)
November 22 at The Barbican, Barbican Theatre
A gripping drama follows the troubled relationship of a married couple. As they start with the divorce procedures, a secret from the past resurfaces changing everything. past. As the story unfolds the relationships exposes a time when religion was not an issue and love could survive a destroyed landscape.
Western Arabs (dir. Omar Shargawi, 2019, 90 mins)
November 13-26 on Barbican Cinema on Demand
Omar's father, Munir, was forced to flee his hometown of Haifa as young boy. And now, with his Danish wife, he has three sons. The trauma of political upheaval never left him and is passing on to the next generation. Shargawi's attempts at getting closer to his father include casting him in his films. But it is the brutal mix of aggression and intense warmth that cuts through.
Letter to a Friend (dir. Emily Jacir, 2019, 43 mins)
November 13-26 on Barbican Cinema on Demand
In Letter to a Friend, artist Emily Jacir writes to Eyal after a military situation leaves her street strewn with empty canisters of Triple Chaser, a particularly destructive type of teargas. She intimately recounts the street's history and her family's past. Interlacing images, textures, and sounds from over a century, Jacir unravels layers of Bethlehem, and the constant threat it lives under.
Triple Chaser (dir. Laura Poitras and Forensic Architecture, 2019, 11 mins)
November 13-26 on Barbican Cinema on Demand
In response to their invitation to the 2019 Whitney Biennial and the controversy of Warren Kanders' then association with the institution, Forensic Architecture teamed with Academy Award winning Laura Poitras to make Triple Chaser. A combination of data-visualization and documentary filmmaking shows how teargas and bullets made by companies that belonged to Kanders have been used against civilians to suppress anti-authoritarian movements.
1982 (dir. Oualid Mouaness, 2019, 100 mins)
November 13-26 on Barbican Cinema on Demand
Starring actress and Oscar-nominated director Nadine Labaki as Yasmine, the schoolteacher trying to keep calm in the face of cataclysmic brink,1982 is a semi-autobiographical first feature by Lebanese director Oualid Mouaness, that brings us the story of looming war through the innocent eyes of a child in love for the first time.
One More Jump (dir. Emanuele Gerosa, 2019, 83 mins)
November 13-26 on LPFF Vimeo on Demand
Jehad and Abdallah, founders of the Gaza Parkour Team, brought up together in the Gaza Strip but their choices divided them for years. Today, more than ever, they need to find out if there is a way that can lead to freedom someone who, like them, was born in prison.
Ibrahim: A Fate To Define (dir. Lina AlAbed, 2019, 100 mins)
November 13-26 on LPFF Vimeo on Demand
In this provocative and personal documentary, director Lina Al Abed searches for traces of her disappeared father: a seemingly ordinary Palestinian family man who was actually a secret member of a militant splinter faction and vanished when she was just a child.
Three Logical Exits (dir. Mahdi Fleifel, 2020, 15 mins)
November 13-26 on LPFF Vimeo on Demand
A sociological meditation on the different “exits” that young Palestinians choose, in order to cope with life in the refugee camps.
Maradona's Legs (dir. Firas Khoury, 2019, 23 mins)
November 13-26 on LPFF Vimeo on Demand
During the 1990 World Cup, two young Palestinian boys are looking for “Maradona's legs”; the last missing sticker that they need in order to complete their world cup album and win a free Atari.
The Present (dir. Farah Nabulsi, 2019, 24 mins)
November 13-26 on LPFF Vimeo on Demand
On his wedding anniversary, Yusef and his young daughter set out in the West Bank to buy his wife a gift. Between soldiers, segregated roads and checkpoints, how easy would it be to go shopping?
Wifi Rider (dir. Roxy Rezvany, 2020, 13 mins)
November 13-26 on LPFF Vimeo on Demand
A young Palestinian turns to the internet as he struggles to shape his identity under the pressures of life in East Jerusalem.
Old Child (dir. Elettra Bisogno, 2019, 16 mins)
November 13-26 on LPFF Vimeo on Demand
Exhausted by a painful voyage from Gaza, Hazem, a young rollerblader, catches his breath in Brussels and takes us along in his visceral world of rage and love.
My Gaza Online (dir. Mohammed Jabaly, 2020, 22 mins)
November 13-26 on LPFF Vimeo on Demand
The film is based on online communication between Palestinian filmmaker Mohamed Jabaly and his friends and family in Gaza.
More details on the Official Website
