ArabishWay

Noir City Film Festival: Cairo Station
2024-02-17 20:15 - 22:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | SIFF Egyptian, 805 E Pine St, Seattle, WA, 98122
A newspaper hawker at the eponymous train depot develops a frightening obsession with a sexy lemonade vendor. That’s the premise for a drama using the station to depict clashing strata of Egyptian society. A landmark of Egyptian cinema despite boycotts over its unflinching perversity and politics.

Egypt | 1958 | 77 min. | Youssef Chahine
Individual Tickets: $16 | $11 SIFF Members – Select showtime to purchase
Passes: $150 | $125 SIFF Members

Virtual Movie Screenings: Every Saturday with Palestine Museum US
2024-03-02 09:00 - 11:00 | Virtual
Check website: https://www.palestinemuseum.us/events for current showings and for registration links!
Often the screening ends with a Q&A with the director!

Movie Streaming: A Ladder to Damascus
2024-03-14 - 2024-03-27
سلّم إلى دمشق
محمد ملص 97 د.
تسافر غالية، المسكونة بروح زينة، وهي فتاة قضت غرقًا يوم ولادتها، إلى دمشق لدراسة التّمثيل. تلتقي هناك بفؤاد، وهو صانع أفلام طموح فُتن بحالتها هذه، فضمّها تحت جناحيه وساعدها في العثور على مسكن. يكبر حبّ فؤاد لغالية وزينة معًا، بينما تبدأ الاضطرابات في سوريا وتمتدّ إلى الشوارع المحيطة بهم لتعكّر عليهم، شيئاً فشيئاً، عزلتهم

Ladder to Damascus

Mohammad Malas 97 mins.

Ghalia is possessed by Zeina’s spirit. Haunted by the life of a girl, who drowned the day she was born, Ghalia travels to Damascus, where she studies acting. There, she meets Fouad, an aspiring filmmaker fascinated by Ghalia’s duality. He takes her under his wing and helps her find a place to live. Fouad’s love for Ghalia and Zeina blossoms while the tumultuous events in Syria start unfolding in the streets around them and gradually encroach on their idyllic isolation.

play / للمشاهدة

Movie: Alam
2024-03-15 19:00 - 20:30, 2024-03-16 18:00 - 20:00, 2024-03-17 15:30 - 17:30, 2024-03-19 19:15 - 21:00 | Grand Illusion Theater, 1403 NE 50th St, Seattle, WA, 98105
The film, Alam, playing at the Grand Illusion Cinema

Despite being part of a young generation of Palestinian Arabs whose families chose to stay and challenge the Israeli state after Al-Nakba, 17-year-old Tamer and his friends are just like any other group of teenage boys. They clumsily search for drugs, flirt with girls, play video games, and slack off at school. However, when a beautiful new student named Maysaa’ joins their class, Tamer immediately falls for her and, by association, is drawn into her political activism. Together they join fellow classmate, Safwat, in an operation to covertly raise the Palestinian flag and peacefully disrupt the local celebrations planned for Israel’s Independence Day – otherwise known to Palestinians as a day of mourning and memorialization for their displacement 70 years prior. Unsure of his own political convictions, Tamer must quickly determine what matters to him and what price he is willing to pay for freedom.
In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles.

View Trailer
Buy Tickets

Friday, Mar 15, 2024, 7:00pm
Saturday, Mar 16, 2024, 6:00pm
Sunday, Mar 17, 2024, 3:30pm
Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024, 7:15pm

ISRAELISM: Film Screening
2024-03-16 19:15 - 21:00 | Tacoma Community College, 6501 South 19th Street, Tacoma, WA, 98466, United States
ISRAELISM” Film Screening and
Q&A with the Creators

Saturday, March 16, 7:15 PM
Tacoma Community College
6501 South 19th Street, Tacoma
Auditorium in Building 2, off South 12th Street

This is a timely screening of a documentary about the experiences of two American Jews and their subsequent ‘unlearning’ of unconditional support for Israel and the negation of all things Palestinian.

Following the film, there will be a discussion and Q&A with Erin Axelman, the film’s director, and Simone Zimmerman, one of two people featured in the documentary. Zimmerman is also a co-founder of If Not Now.

The Rachel Corrie Foundation is pleased to cosponsor this event, which is hosted and sponsored by our colleagues at Jewish Voice for Peace-Tacoma.
The film and presentation are free and open to the public. For more information, find the event on Facebook.

Online Film Salon Discussion: Films on "Hydropolitics"
2024-03-17 12:00 - 15:00 | Virtual
Register: Tinyurl.com/VFHL-March2024Watch the films at your convenience!
Join the panel at 12pm!

www.voicesfromtheholyland.org/salonrecordings

Invitation to an Online Film Salon
Sunday March 17, 2024

Controlling the supply, distribution, and cost of water to an occupied people is apartheid in action. Israel, through legal and illegal means, maintains near-complete control over the region’s freshwater aquifers, severely restricting Palestinians’ abilities to drill wells, install pumps, build water tanks, or even collect rainwater. The average Israeli consumes over 3 times the water used by Palestinian on the water grid in the West Bank (9 times the water used by those off the grid). West Bank Palestinians pay 1/3 or more of their income to Israeli companies for drinking water. Meanwhile, Gazans are now consuming less than 3 liters per day—hardly enough for survival.
VFHL offers three short videos describing the “hydropolitics” and structural water apartheid in the Holy Land. Our panel discussion will explore designed inequalities in water distribution; the physical, economic and regulatory controls; as well as the ecological problems of pollution and over-extraction
Watch the videos for free at your convenience; Join the Q&A Discussion with:
Nancy Murray–Co-founder of Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine
Mazin Qumsiyeh–Director of the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability
Eyal Hareuveni–Author, Parched: Israel’s Policy of Water Deprivation in the West Bank
Jeff Halper (Moderator) – Israeli-American anthropologist, author, lecturer, and political activist; founder of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)
You must register to join the discussion & receive access to the film: Tinyurl.com/VFHL-March2024
Watch the Trailer: Tinyurl.com/VFHL-March2024Trailer
How this will work:
1 – Register here for the Voices from the Holy Land Online Film Salon:
Tinyurl.com/VFHL-March2024
2 – Once you register, you will get a confirmation email from Zoom with a link to the meeting and a link with to watch the film. (Save this confirmation letter as the meeting link is unique to your email and you must have this to participate.)
3 – Watch the film at your convenience before the event. Then join us with your thoughts and questions for our speakers at the Q&A Discussion on Sunday March 17, 2024 at 3 pm ET/ 12 noon PT.
Please share this announcement with your friends, family, and community. Download the event flyer and post it to your social media.
Download the event flyer here. (Download the jpg version here)
Download information about the Panelists and moderator here. (Download the jpg version here)
Don’t forget to watch recordings of previous Online Film Salon recordings in their entirety here, including for the January 21, 2023 Online Film Salon on Israelism. An article in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs on the December Salon can be found here. Also read an article on the November 2023 Salon on Marketing the Occupation – Part Two: Media and the Palestine Problem in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Here is an article on the July Salon on My Tree inMondoweiss here.
The March 2024 VFHL Online Film Salon is co-sponsored by
Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine
Progressive Workers Union – Palestine Solidarity Group

Virtual Movie Screenings: Every Saturday with Palestine Museum US
2024-03-23 09:00 - 11:00, 2024-05-04 09:00 - 11:00 | Virtual
Check website: https://www.palestinemuseum.us/events for current showings and for registration links!
Often the screening ends with a Q&A with the director!
Saturday March 23, 2024 – Program begins: 12:00 PM US EDT; 17:00 Europe; 18:00 Palestine.
Film: “Salma’s Home,” directed by Palestinian filmmaker Hanadi Elyan.
Three women living in Amman must put their differences aside and work together in order to survive after a death in the family unravels their lives. SALMA (Juliet Awad) is a talented baker living alone in a large old house overlooking downtown Amman, her daughter FARAH (Sameera Asir) is a young working mother with marital problems. Their lives are disrupted by the death of Salma’s ex- husband. The funeral takes place at his current wife’s house, LAMIA (Rania Al Kurdi), an aspiring socialite who is obsessed with building her brand online. After the funeral, shocking facts come to light leading to territorial clashes and finally forcing the three women to accept some harsh realities and take control of their lives.
Please click here to register to watch the film

Movie: Foragers
2024-04-03 19:30 - 21:00 | The Beacon, 4405 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA, 98118, United States
In her cinematic investigation into the Palestinian practice of foraging za’atar (a thyme-like herb) and ’akkoub (a wild artichoke-like plant), artist Jumana Manna reveals the perils involved in the preservation of Arab traditions under Israeli law. Her inventive blend of fiction, documentary and archival footage in FORAGERS coalesces into a warm portrait of a community whose daily activities resist continued repression.
Beginning with archival footage from a ‘70s Israeli TV program in which the popularity of za’atar among Arabs is being discussed, the film shows an Israeli businessman boasting about his decision to start planting and selling za’atar, transforming the herb from a public good typically foraged by Palestinians into an agricultural commodity that profits Israelis. (It is no coincidence the footage is from the same decade that saw a public ban on the collection of za’atar in Israel.) Manna’s film is clear about how business and politics are embroiled in the continued erasure of Palestinian culture to such effect that the “very simple act of going out and collecting wild weeds becomes about a much wider politics of land control and sovereignty.”
For Manna, FORAGERS is the product of her longstanding interest in the “politics of preservation” and her own experience foraging alongside her parents, who appear throughout the film. Her refusal to let Israeli authorities decide “what gets preserved and gets erased” informs her approach to filmmaking, in which the documentation of family customs affirms Palestinian values and traditions against systemic attempts at blotting a people, their land, and their culture from the world’s collective memory.

Movie: Foragers
2024-04-10 16:30 - 18:00 | The Beacon, 4405 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA, 98118, United States
In her cinematic investigation into the Palestinian practice of foraging za’atar (a thyme-like herb) and ’akkoub (a wild artichoke-like plant), artist Jumana Manna reveals the perils involved in the preservation of Arab traditions under Israeli law. Her inventive blend of fiction, documentary and archival footage in FORAGERS coalesces into a warm portrait of a community whose daily activities resist continued repression.
Beginning with archival footage from a ‘70s Israeli TV program in which the popularity of za’atar among Arabs is being discussed, the film shows an Israeli businessman boasting about his decision to start planting and selling za’atar, transforming the herb from a public good typically foraged by Palestinians into an agricultural commodity that profits Israelis. (It is no coincidence the footage is from the same decade that saw a public ban on the collection of za’atar in Israel.) Manna’s film is clear about how business and politics are embroiled in the continued erasure of Palestinian culture to such effect that the “very simple act of going out and collecting wild weeds becomes about a much wider politics of land control and sovereignty.”

Movie: Foragers
2024-04-11 19:00 - 21:00 | Olympia Capitol Theater, 206 5th Avenue SE, Olympia, WA, 98501, United States
The Olympia Film Society
presents “Foragers” by
Palestinian artist & filmmaker, Jumana Manna
Capitol Theater in Olympia
Thursday, April 11th, 7 p.m.
The event marks Rachel Corrie’s 45th birthday (on April 10th), with proceeds benefitting Palestinian children in Gaza.
The Olympia Film Society, in conjunction with the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice, will screen the documentary film Foragers, Thursday, April 11th, at the Capitol Theater, 206 5th Ave SE, in Olympia. Doors open at 6 p.m, and the film will screen at 7 p.m.
With “wry humor and a meditative pace,” the film depicts the dramas around the Palestinian custom of foraging for wild edible plants, and the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs. The film’s director, Jumana Manna, is a Palestinian visual artist and filmmaker whose “work explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land and materiality in relation to colonial inheritances and histories of place.”
The 64-minute documentary will be followed by a post-film presentation and Q&A with Savvina Chowdhury, Political Economy and Environmental Justice Professor at The Evergreen State College, and by Peter Bohmer, representing the recently formed Palestine Action of South Sound (PASS).
The film event will mark and celebrate the 45th birthday of local activist Rachel Corrie, killed by the Israeli military in 2003 as she stood to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian family’s home in Gaza. Rachel’s mother, Cindy Corrie, will introduce the documentary. Proceeds from the film screening will benefit Palestinian children in Gaza.
Olympita, the Palestinian owned food truck, will have a pop up, serving Za’atar pie and other delicious food!
Tickets are available online now and at the box office 60 minutes before showtime.
$13 General Admission & $10 for OFS members
All Proceeds Benefit Palestinian Children in Gaza.

SIFF: Hajjan [Saudi Arabia]
2024-05-10 13:00 - 15:00 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
In the Saudi Arabian desert, teenage Matar and his camel Hofira are inseparable. But when his older brother dies, Matar’s only chance of saving Hofira is to become a “hajjan,” or jockey, and join the winner-takes-all world of Bedouin camel racing.

SIFF: Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano [Lebanon]
2024-05-10 16:00 - 18:00 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
While shooting Costa Brava, Lebanon (SIFF 2022), the film crew’s world stopped when Lebanon’s Port of Beirut suddenly exploded, killing over 200 people and injuring thousands more. What does it mean to strive for human dignity and make art amid a country’s continuing turmoil?

Movie: The Old Oak
2024-05-10 19:00 - 21:00, 2024-05-11 19:00 - 21:00, 2024-05-12 17:00 - 19:00, 2024-05-13 19:30 - 21:30, 2024-05-14 19:30 - 21:30 | The Beacon, 4405 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA, 98118, United States
The Old Oak is a special place. Not only is it the last pub standing in its small northern town, but it’s also the only remaining public space where people can meet in a once thriving mining community that has now fallen on hard times after 30 years of decline. Its owner TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner) hangs on to The Old Oak by his fingertips, and his predicament is endangered even more when the pub becomes contested territory after the arrival of Syrian refugees who are placed in the village without any notice. In an unlikely friendship, TJ meets a curious young Syrian photographer named Yara (Ebla Mari). Together can they find a way for the two communities to understand each other? So unfolds a deeply moving drama about their fragilities and hopes.

SIFF: The Ride Ahead
2024-05-11 13:30 - 15:30 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
Samuel Habib is an adventurous, cool, 20-year-old disabled guy who says things like, “Taking risks makes me feel proud, powerful, confident, bold.” He doesn’t want much for his adult life, just to “move into my own place, get married, and maybe have kids.” The Ride Ahead documents three years of Samuel’s search for how he can achieve things that feel so daunting for disabled folks; security, independence, and girlfriends. With the help of his father, filmmaker Daniel Habib, Sam outfits his chair with two video cameras, enabling the audience to see Samuel’s actual point-of-view and how people interact with him. Samuel tells his own story, in his own voice, with the assistance of lovely animation by Xilia Faye and Ben Luce. The question of how to live a great life as a disabled badass propels Samuel to interview leading disability activists and advocates Judy Heumann, Bob Williams, Keith Jones, Ali Stroker, Maysoon Zayid, Andrew Peterson, and Lydia X.Y. Brown.

SIFF: Stress Positions
2024-05-11 19:30 - 21:30, 2024-05-12 15:00 - 17:00 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
Alt comic John Early (“Search Party”), Amy Zimmer (Problemista), writer/director Theda Hammel (“My Trip to Spain”), and newcomer Qaher Harhash star is this frantic, coarse, and bitterly funny ensemble comedy set at a pandemic-era Brooklyn brownstone.

SIFF: Voy! Voy! Voy! [Egypt]
2024-05-11 21:15 - 23:15 | AMC Pacific Place, 600 Pine St suite 400, Seattle, WA, 98101, United States
How far would you go to change your life? In Egypt’s official Oscar® submission, Hassan is desperate to leave his home country. With few options left, he pretends to be blind so he can join a disabled soccer team headed to Poland. Inspired by an unbelievable true story.

SIFF: The Burdened (Yemen)
2024-05-13 20:00 - 21:00 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
Films from Yemen are rare, in part because of the country’s long-running civil war, now in its tenth year. Indeed, the impact of the war on the country and its citizens—there’s no running water; electricity is erratic; warring factions struggle for control—is one of the burdens faced by middle-class couple Isra’a and Ahmed. Ahmed works for Aden Television, but as a result of the country’s economic crisis, his salary has been suspended for several months. Meanwhile, he’s taken a second job as a taxi driver, but it isn’t enough to keep them and their three children in their comfortable apartment. Isra’a, who has also lost her job, sells her jewelry to make ends meet. This is the context in which Isra’a realizes that she is pregnant. Keenly aware that they cannot afford a fourth child, she is also worried about whether abortion is permitted under Islam. Religious and public opinion on the issue vary, which means that Isra’a’s personal misgivings are only the beginning. Clear-eyed, understated, and compelling,
The Burdened tells a story that is at once specific to Yemen’s particular context, and relatable in any country where religion and politics threaten people’s ability to access the healthcare they need, and take care of themselves and their families.

SIFF: Hajjan [Saudi Arabia]
2024-05-13 20:30 - 22:30 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
Two young Bedouin brothers Matar (first-time actor Omar AlAtawi) and Ghanim have grown up listening to stories about their legendary grandfather, referred to only as “Hajjan,” the Arabic word for jockey. Determined to carry on the family tradition, Ghanim is preparing for the Great Safwa Race, where both jockeys and camel owners vie for glory. After Ghanim is killed during the race, it appears that Jasser Al Saqqar, the scheming owner of another team, is responsible. But Matar wants to follow in his brother’s footsteps and volunteers himself and his beloved camel, Hofira, for the next race. When he comes in second, his family sells Hofira to the rival team—which happens to be owned by Jasser. Refusing to be separated from her, Matar is forced to ride for Jasser. In the races that follow, the stakes become higher and higher. Set against the backdrop of the Arabian desert, Hajjan, the second film from Abu Bakr Shawky (Yommedine, SIFF 2019) offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of camel racing, one of the region’s oldest and most popular sports. “Camels are adored by their jockeys,” a Bedouin camel herder sings at the beginning of the film, which is, at its heart, a moving account of the bond that can develop between human and animal.

SIFF: Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano [Lebanon]
2024-05-13 21:00 - 22:30 | AMC Pacific Place, 600 Pine St suite 400, Seattle, WA, 98101, United States

SIFF: The Burdened (Yemen)
2024-05-14 13:30 - 15:30 | SIFF Egyptian, 805 E Pine St, Seattle, WA, 98122

SIFF: Voy! Voy! Voy! [Egypt]
2024-05-14 13:30 - 15:30 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
