ArabishWay

Seattle International Film Festival: Khartoum
2025-05-21 13:30 - 15:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | AMC Pacific Place, 600 Pine St suite 400, Seattle, WA, 98101, United States
Want a discount on your ticket? Use code ARABISH51 for $3 when purchasing tickets!
What begins as a street-level documentary of five ordinary lives in Khartoum—a civil servant, a tea vendor, a resistance volunteer, and two young bottle collectors—evolves into a radically inventive chronicle of a city at the edge of collapse. Shot on donated iPhones by four Sudanese filmmakers working alongside British director Phil Cox, production was interrupted when war erupted in April 2023. The filmmakers fled Sudan and regrouped in Nairobi, where they transformed the project using green screen re-enactments, animation, and dreamlike visual reconstructions.
The film’s five interwoven stories bear witness to lives disrupted by conflict but never reduced by it. A mother sings lullabies to shield her daughter; two boys flee militias on the back of an invisible lion; a government worker hides from a regime unraveling around him. Through surreal vignettes and raw detail, Khartoum refuses the distancing lens of crisis coverage.
So while Khartoum began as a vérité documentary shot in Sudan, it became a diasporic production: completed in exile, shaped by displacement, and creatively reassembled across borders. A collaborative act of remembrance and resistance, it is not simply about a city under siege—it is made by those who fled it, carrying its stories with them.

Seattle International Film Festival: Happy Holidays
2025-05-21 20:30 - 22:30 | SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St, Seattle, 98109
Want a discount on your ticket? Use code ARABISH51 for $3 when purchasing tickets!
Oscar® winner Scandar Copti (Ajami) is back with a new film about a middle-class Arab family in Israel and the impact of the country’s divisions on every aspect of their lives, mundane and momentous alike.
Fouad’s business is in trouble, which has plunged him into debt. This has major implications for his wife, Hanan, a woman very invested in maintaining the family’s social position, especially in anticipation of their elder daughter Leila’s upcoming wedding. Son Rami has a different kind of problem. His Jewish Israeli girlfriend is pregnant, but how would they raise a child in a country where their relationship must be kept secret? This question takes on a new urgency when the couple become the object of mysterious threats. Meanwhile, younger daughter Fifi has a secret of her own. After a minor car accident, she ends up in the hospital where her medical records, including her sexual history, come to light, causing further upheaval for the family and Fifi herself.
This ensemble of characters (mostly played by non-professional actors) and their stories create a rare portrait of Arab and Jewish lives in Israel and the effects of social, political, and religious divisions on every aspect of those lives, mundane and momentous alike.
Other Showtimes:

THURSDAY, MAY 22, 2025 AMC Pacific Place

1:00 PM

Seattle International Film Festival: Happy Holidays
2025-05-22 13:00 - 15:00 | AMC Pacific Place, 600 Pine St suite 400, Seattle, WA, 98101, United States

Seattle International Film Festival: Everybody Loves Touda
2025-05-22 15:15 - 17:15 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
Want a discount on your ticket? Use code ARABISH51 for $3 when purchasing tickets!
In the latest film from Nabil Ayouch (Horses of God, SIFF 2014) co-written with his wife, director Maryam Touzani (The Blue Caftan, SIFF 2023), Touda dreams of being a sheikha, or traditional Moroccan folk singer. More than that, she is determined to be one, which is fortunate because the road ahead is a rocky one. A single mother with a young son to support, she sings at parties and in bars in her provincial town. But these opportunities are limited and fraught with risk, as her male audience’s “love” often shades into something more proprietary and threatening. She sets her sights on Casablanca and, leaving her son with her parents and ignoring the disapproval of her conservative brother, she heads to the big city. There Touda meets an older musician, a violinist who recognizes her ambition and her potential, and becomes a sort of mentor. With his help, she sets about to master the aita, a Moroccan musical genre rooted in poetry about the many struggles of life, from the personal to the political. As her singing improves, she can command higher fees and a more elite audience. But in a culture where female performers are as often eroticized and stigmatized as venerated, what does it really mean to be loved?

Other Showtimes:

TICKETS
Select showtime for pricing and tickets.

FRIDAY, MAY 23, 2025

SIFF Cinema Uptown
8:30 PM

Seattle International Film Festival: Moon
2025-05-22 20:00 - 22:00 | SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St, Seattle, 98109
Want a discount on your ticket? Use code ARABISH51 for $3 when purchasing tickets!
Sarah (played by provocateur performance artist Florentina Holzinger) is an Austrian professional MMA fighter who has just lost a career-ending fight. She’s tough, with a face that shows her decades spent brawling, and she doesn’t hesitate to accept a job offer that her friends and family believe is too good to be true: A wealthy Jordanian man has hired Sarah to be a private trainer for his three sisters, who never leave the mansion without a bodyguard. But who is this family and why are they under constant surveillance?
Moon is Kurdish-Austrian filmmaker Kurdwin Ayub’s thrilling sophomore feature, following her award-winning debut film Sonne (SIFF 2023). Moon has already garnered several awards for its enthralling portrayal of a family in peril, shown through the hardened eyes of a woman trying to navigate a life she doesn’t want. Ayub doesn’t give easy answers in this tense film that asks, “How can you save others when you cannot save yourself?”
Other Showtimes:

FRIDAY, MAY 23, 2025, AMC Pacific Place

11:00 AM

Seattle International Film Festival: To A Land Unknown
2025-05-23 13:15 - 15:15 | AMC Pacific Place, 600 Pine St suite 400, Seattle, WA, 98101, United States
Want a discount on your ticket? Use code ARABISH51 for $3 when purchasing tickets!
Mahdi Fleifel, who made the great documentary A World Not Ours (SIFF 2013) about the Ein el-Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon, where his parents were born, returns to the Festival with his fiction debut, To a Land Unknown.
The refugees in this story have made out of their camp and travelled to Athens, where they are stranded en route to Germany. Chatila is clever and resourceful, and it falls to him to come up with a plan; Reda, his cousin, is sweet but hapless, owing in part to a weakness for drugs. To raise the money they need for fake passports, they resort to increasingly desperate crimes: stealing, sex work, human trafficking. To sustain themselves, they nurture the fantasy of the café they plan to open in Germany, where Chatila’s wife will cook, and they’ll make enough money to bring the rest of their family, currently stuck in the camp.
While films about refugees are not uncommon, what sets this film apart is the way the director puts us squarely in Chatila and Reda’s shoes as they try to figure out how to reach their final destination, how to keep themselves alive in the meanwhile, and how to do it all without losing their humanity in the process.
Other Showtimes:

SATURDAY, MAY 24, 2025, Shoreline Community College

8:30 PM

Seattle International Film Festival: Everybody Loves Touda
2025-05-23 20:30 - 22:30 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
Want a discount on your ticket? Use code ARABISH51 for $3 when purchasing tickets!
In the latest film from Nabil Ayouch (Horses of God, SIFF 2014) co-written with his wife, director Maryam Touzani (The Blue Caftan, SIFF 2023), Touda dreams of being a sheikha, or traditional Moroccan folk singer. More than that, she is determined to be one, which is fortunate because the road ahead is a rocky one. A single mother with a young son to support, she sings at parties and in bars in her provincial town. But these opportunities are limited and fraught with risk, as her male audience’s “love” often shades into something more proprietary and threatening. She sets her sights on Casablanca and, leaving her son with her parents and ignoring the disapproval of her conservative brother, she heads to the big city. There Touda meets an older musician, a violinist who recognizes her ambition and her potential, and becomes a sort of mentor. With his help, she sets about to master the aita, a Moroccan musical genre rooted in poetry about the many struggles of life, from the personal to the political. As her singing improves, she can command higher fees and a more elite audience. But in a culture where female performers are as often eroticized and stigmatized as venerated, what does it really mean to be loved?

Seattle International Film Festival: Coexistence, My Ass!
2025-05-24 20:00 - 22:00 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
Want a discount on your ticket? Use code ARABISH51 for $3 when purchasing tickets!
Comedy about Israel and Palestine is a high-wire act and perhaps never more so than now, which is part of what makes this documentary about Israeli comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi so riveting. With an Iranian-Jewish mother and an Ashkenazi Romanian father, Noam grew up in Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam, an intentional community where Arab and Jewish families live together by choice, and where her left-wing parents moved the family in the early 1990s.
A committed activist for equal rights for Palestinians and Jews—as she explains, coexistence can only exist between equals—she studied International Relations at Brandeis before taking a job at the United Nations. When she was invited by Harvard to work on a peace project, she chose to develop her one-woman show, “Coexistence, My Ass!” Shooting on the film began in 2020 and tracks the show’s progress through COVID and Noam’s growing fame, as well as Noam’s own navigation of the attacks on October 7th, their impact on her friends and family, and the subsequent war on Gaza.
Consistent through it all is Noam’s clear-eyed insight—sometimes funny, sometimes deadly serious, sometimes both at the same time. Winner of the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression.
Other Showtimes:

SUNDAY, MAY 25, 2025, SIFF Cinema Uptown

11:30 AM

Seattle International Film Festival: To A Land Unknown
2025-05-24 20:30 - 22:30 | Shoreline Community College Theater, 16101 Greenwood Avenue N. (Building 1600), Shoreline, WA, 98133
Want a discount on your ticket? Use code ARABISH51 for $3 when purchasing tickets!
Mahdi Fleifel, who made the great documentary A World Not Ours (SIFF 2013) about the Ein el-Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon, where his parents were born, returns to the Festival with his fiction debut, To a Land Unknown.
The refugees in this story have made out of their camp and travelled to Athens, where they are stranded en route to Germany. Chatila is clever and resourceful, and it falls to him to come up with a plan; Reda, his cousin, is sweet but hapless, owing in part to a weakness for drugs. To raise the money they need for fake passports, they resort to increasingly desperate crimes: stealing, sex work, human trafficking. To sustain themselves, they nurture the fantasy of the café they plan to open in Germany, where Chatila’s wife will cook, and they’ll make enough money to bring the rest of their family, currently stuck in the camp.
While films about refugees are not uncommon, what sets this film apart is the way the director puts us squarely in Chatila and Reda’s shoes as they try to figure out how to reach their final destination, how to keep themselves alive in the meanwhile, and how to do it all without losing their humanity in the process.

Seattle International Film Festival: Coexistence, My Ass!
2025-05-25 11:30 - 13:30 | SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave N,, Seattle, WA, 98109, United States
Want a discount on your ticket? Use code ARABISH51 for $3 when purchasing tickets!
Comedy about Israel and Palestine is a high-wire act and perhaps never more so than now, which is part of what makes this documentary about Israeli comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi so riveting. With an Iranian-Jewish mother and an Ashkenazi Romanian father, Noam grew up in Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam, an intentional community where Arab and Jewish families live together by choice, and where her left-wing parents moved the family in the early 1990s.
A committed activist for equal rights for Palestinians and Jews—as she explains, coexistence can only exist between equals—she studied International Relations at Brandeis before taking a job at the United Nations. When she was invited by Harvard to work on a peace project, she chose to develop her one-woman show, “Coexistence, My Ass!” Shooting on the film began in 2020 and tracks the show’s progress through COVID and Noam’s growing fame, as well as Noam’s own navigation of the attacks on October 7th, their impact on her friends and family, and the subsequent war on Gaza.
Consistent through it all is Noam’s clear-eyed insight—sometimes funny, sometimes deadly serious, sometimes both at the same time. Winner of the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression.

Free Film Screening: Israelism
2025-05-25 19:00 - 21:00 | Vashon Theater, 17723 Vashon Highway SW, Vashon, WA, 98070
Two young American Jews travel to Israel seeking a deeper understanding of the country they were raised to love. What they encounter profoundly impacts them, leading them to join a growing movement to redefine their community’s relationship with Israel in this challenging and emotional journey. Join us for the free screening of this film.
About the film
Two young American Jews – Simone Zimmerman and Eitan – are raised to defend the state of Israel at all costs. Eitan joins the Israeli military. Simone supports Israel on ‘the other battlefield:’ America’s college campuses. When they witness Israel‘s mistreatment of the Palestinian people with their own eyes, they are horrified and heartbroken.
They join the movement of young American Jews battling the old guard over Israel’s centrality in American Judaism, and demanding freedom for the Palestinian people. Their stories reveal a generational divide in the American Jewish community as more young Jews question the narratives their synagogues and Hebrew school teachers fed them as children.
The film also features voices like Jacqui, a Jewish educator who says “Judaism is Israel and Israel is Judaism”, and former Anti-Defamation League President Abe Foxman, who claims voices like Simone and Eitan’s represent a small minority. Thought leaders like Peter Beinart, Jeremy Ben-Ami, Noura Erakat, Cornel West, and Noam Chomsky also weigh in.
Directed by two first-time Jewish filmmakers who share a similar story to the film’s protagonists, Israelism is produced by Peabody-winner and 4-time Emmy-nominee Daniel J. Chalfen (Loudmouth, Boycott), executive produced by two-time Emmy-winner Brian A. Kates (Marvelous Ms. Maisel, Succession) and edited by Emmy-winner Tony Hale (The Story of Plastic), Israelism uniquely explores how Jewish attitudes towards Israel are changing dramatically, with massive consequences for the region and for Judaism itself.

Kitsap Solidarity Presents: One Family in Gaza
2025-05-31 16:30 - 17:30 | Bainbridge Island Senior/Community Center, 370 Brien Dr. SE, Bainbridge Island, WA, 98110
An original play by Crystal Zevon
Based on texts from Yasser in Gaza
In November 2023, Crystal Zevon, a longtime activist for Palestine, began a text conversation with a young 33 year old Palestinian man in Gaza. Yasser is a civil engineer, a husband and the father of three young children under the age of seven. For more than a year, and continuing, Yasser and Crystal have exchanged texts, photos and videos on almost a daily basis. These unedited texts create the basis for telling the poignant, terrifying, and sometimes joyful story of one family’s struggle to survive through a genocide. Yasser’s texts are juxtaposed against news items of corresponding dates, and the thoughts and feelings of someone living in comfort and safety oceans away.
One Family in Gaza is a play about simply that – One Family in Gaza .
The objective for creating this play is three-fold:

To offer a play that is profound in its reliance on the truths disclosed through a relationship grounded in the reality of two distant and distinct realities, yet a play so simple that anyone can perform it anywhere – from a dining room table reading to a staged performance.

To humanize Palestinians by creating a relationship with one family whose loves, fears, hopes and dreams are not unlike yours.

To motivate those who see the play to continue the discussion, to delve beneath the media’s glossing over of a genocide and take action to expose it.
It is through identification with the basic human truths revealed in the daily life of one family that we can and must create change.

More information to come (please check website)

Virtual Movie Screenings: Every Saturday with Palestine Museum US
2025-06-07 09:00 - 11:00, 2025-08-02 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!

Ground Zero
2025-06-20 17:30 - 20:30 | First United Methodist Church (Oak Harbor), 1050 SE Ireland St, Oak Harbor, WA, 98277
FREE MOVIE SCREENING in OAK HARBOR!
Experience a night of powerful storytelling and community spirit in support of one Palestinian family. Be in community and watch “From Ground Zero” on Friday, June 20th (doors open 5:30pm) at First United Methodist Church in Oak Harbor, WA.
Free entry and refreshments! RSVP for tickets using the link in bio 🍉

Movie: The Teacher
2025-06-22 17:00 - 19:00, 2025-06-23 19:30 - 21:00, 2025-06-24 16:30 - 19:00 | The Beacon, 4405 Rainier Ave S, Seattle, WA, 98118, United States
The destruction of a Palestinian home by Israeli edict and the murder of a youth at the hands of an Israeli settler set the stage for even more shocks to come in THE TEACHER. Saleh Bakri is Basem, an amiable educator who tries to steer the deceased boy’s younger brother Adam (Muhammad Abed Elrahman) from seeking revenge. At the same time, Basem ignores his own advice, maintaining ties with the resistance and involving himself in a hostage situation. He tries to keep his activities secret from Adam and his British girlfriend Lisa (Imogen Poots) but it becomes harder to maintain his silence when Israeli troops show up at his door.
THE TEACHER, set and shot with difficulty in occupied territory, is the feature debut of Oscar-nominated and BAFTA-winning British-Palestinian writer-director Farah Nabulsi. Inspired by true events and led by a commanding and wounded performance from Bakri, the film probes the desperate actions of those who feel they have no recourse for justice.

Arab Film Club: Alexandria... Why? [In-Person Only]
2025-06-25 18:30 - 21:30 | Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 2, Seattle, WA, 98122, United States
(Youssef Chahine, 1979, Egypt, 133 min, in Egyptian Arabic with English subtitles)

Alexandria during World War II. Yehia, a young man in his final year of school who loves movies and music, dreams of making it to Hollywood. But like most of Egypt’s middle class, the war has left his parents in a tight financial situation. Through Yehia’s endeavors, his Christian family and his diverse group of friends, we are exposed to different segments of Alexandrian society: from Egyptian and British soldiers, communist workers and patriotic aristocrats to social climbers and war profiteers. A rich, dynamic portrait of the director’s beloved city during a seminal moment in its long and layered history.
An Egyptian classic, Alexandria…Why? won the Silver Bear – Special Jury Prize at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival in 1979.
About Youssef Chahine:
Born in Alexandria in 1926 to a middle-class family of Greek and Lebanese origin, Chahine came into the world between the wars in the heart of the region’s most cosmopolitan city. From an early age he developed a passion for theater, cinema, and Shakespeare. After spending a year at the University of Alexandria, he decided to study acting at California’s Pasadena Playhouse, only to quickly turn to directing. Chahine’s reputation as an international auteur was established early on; his sophomore effort Son of the Nile (Ibn el Nil, 1951) was nominated for Cannes’ Grand Prix of the Festival in 1952.
– Bio by Joseph Fahim

Arab Film Club: Alexandria... Why? [In-Person Only]
2025-06-25 18:30 - 22:00 | Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 2, Seattle, WA, 98122, United States
(Youssef Chahine, 1979, Egypt, 133 min, in Egyptian Arabic with English subtitles)
Alexandria during World War II. Yehia, a young man in his final year of school who loves movies and music, dreams of making it to Hollywood. But like most of Egypt’s middle class, the war has left his parents in a tight financial situation. Through Yehia’s endeavors, his Christian family and his diverse group of friends, we are exposed to different segments of Alexandrian society: from Egyptian and British soldiers, communist workers and patriotic aristocrats to social climbers and war profiteers. A rich, dynamic portrait of the director’s beloved city during a seminal moment in its long and layered history.
An Egyptian classic, Alexandria…Why? won the Silver Bear – Special Jury Prize at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival in 1979.
About Youssef Chahine:
Born in Alexandria in 1926 to a middle-class family of Greek and Lebanese origin, Chahine came into the world between the wars in the heart of the region’s most cosmopolitan city. From an early age he developed a passion for theater, cinema, and Shakespeare. After spending a year at the University of Alexandria, he decided to study acting at California’s Pasadena Playhouse, only to quickly turn to directing. Chahine’s reputation as an international auteur was established early on; his sophomore effort Son of the Nile (Ibn el Nil, 1951) was nominated for Cannes’ Grand Prix of the Festival in 1952.
– Bio by Joseph Fahim
Wed Jun 25: 6.30pm PDT
GET TICKETS HERE!

Seattle Arab Film Festival: Short Film Lineup
2025-07-11 18:00 - 22:00 | The Cultural Stage
🎥 Short Film Lineup Announcement! 🌙
We’re kicking off our Summer Movie Festival on July 11 with a powerful lineup of short films from across the MENA region and its global diaspora—curated in collaboration with the @seattle_arab_film_festival 🇵🇸🇮🇷🇾🇪🇺🇸
✨ Featured Films:
Bethlehem 2001 (Palestine)
Fading Dream (Iran)
In the Long Run (Yemen)
Mariam (Palestine/US)
Join us for an evening of storytelling, culture, and community—free and outdoors!

Seattle Arab Film Festival
2025-07-15 - 2025-07-17 | Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 2, Seattle, WA, 98122, United States
The 6th Seattle Arab Film Festival will take place from August 15 to 17 at the @nwfilmforum.
More details and full line up coming soon!
#SAFF2025 #Seattle #ArabCinema

Seattle International Film Festival: To A Land Unknown
2025-07-18 19:00 - 21:00, 2025-07-19 19:00 - 21:00, 2025-07-20 16:30 - 18:30, 2025-07-20 19:00 - 21:00 | SIFF Film Center, 305 Harrison St, Seattle, 98109
Mahdi Fleifel, who made the great documentary A World Not Ours (SIFF 2013) about the Ein el-Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon, where his parents were born, returns to the Festival with his fiction debut, To a Land Unknown.
The refugees in this story have made out of their camp and travelled to Athens, where they are stranded en route to Germany. Chatila is clever and resourceful, and it falls to him to come up with a plan; Reda, his cousin, is sweet but hapless, owing in part to a weakness for drugs. To raise the money they need for fake passports, they resort to increasingly desperate crimes: stealing, sex work, human trafficking. To sustain themselves, they nurture the fantasy of the café they plan to open in Germany, where Chatila’s wife will cook, and they’ll make enough money to bring the rest of their family, currently stuck in the camp.
While films about refugees are not uncommon, what sets this film apart is the way the director puts us squarely in Chatila and Reda’s shoes as they try to figure out how to reach their final destination, how to keep themselves alive in the meanwhile, and how to do it all without losing their humanity in the process.

Film: Last May in Palestine (virtual)
2025-07-26 09:00 - 11:00 | Virtual
Saturday, July 26 Film Screening:
Please Click Here to register to attend this event via Zoom.
Film screening will start at 12:00 PM US EDT; 19:00 Palestine, 18:00 Europe, UK 17:00; Running Time 20 minutes, 2024, English language with English subtitles. The film screening will be followed by Q&A discussions with film director Rabeea Eid..
About the Film
“After the assassination of Shireen Abu-Akleh on May 2022, I return from the UK to Palestine and open my archive of May 2021 upraising in Haifa. On this trip, I relive memories and places I left, but it did not leave me, and I ask questions about being a journalist during dangerous events,” Rabeea Eid, film director.

Diaries of Lebanon
2025-07-30 19:00 - 21:00 | Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 2, Seattle, WA, 98122, United States
🎞️ Diaries From Lebanon by Myriam El Hajj
🗓️ Wednesday, July 30, 7PM PDT at the @nwfilmforum
“War, politics, or revolution. These are the choices of Georges, Joumana, and Perla Joe. Three destinies tied to a desire to change a sick country. How can we continue to dream when the world around us is collapsing?”
#DiariesFromLebanon #Beirut #Lebanon #ArabCinema #Seattle#Washington
#NWFF

Movie: Severed + Panel Discussion
2025-08-13 18:30 - 20:00 | Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave, 2, Seattle, WA, 98122, United States
Severed (produced by Donkeysaddle Projects, +972 Magazine and The Nation, in partnership with Just Vision) tells the story of Mohamad Saleh, an 18-year-old from Gaza who has lived through five major assaults. In those attacks, he lost his home, family members, his best friends, and, at the age of 12, his leg. Mohamad was able to evacuate to Egypt after surviving seven months of genocide and remains in exile there, struggling to piece together the shattered fragments of his life. Through his eyes, the pain and trauma endured by thousands in Gaza are laid bare, alongside their remarkable strength, resilience, and determination to live.
Tickets are sliding scale, and a portion of the proceeds benefits Gaza families. (If comps are needed, please contact cole@nwfilmforum.org.)

About the panelists/co-sponsors:
Zahyr Lauren [moderator] (they/them), also known as The Artist L.Haz, is the founder of the arts, education, and advocacy company Koro Rules The Sun LLC. Koro Rules The Sun is an art-based company that creates visual work in service of justice movements and has generated thousands in donations for organizations like the Center for Constitutional Rights. The company uses creative expression to Activate, Elevate, and Support messages and movements for freedom and global solidarity.
Diana Fakhoury [panelist] is a multidisciplinary designer, artist, and co-founder of Washington for Peace and Justice (WA4PJ). WA4PJ is a Palestinian-led advocacy group working to transform US policy on Palestine through political action in Washington state. While centering Palestinian voices, they build people’s power to advocate for communities locally and in historic Palestine, in pursuit of justice and collective liberation.
Rufina Reyes [panelist] is the director of La Resistencia, a grassroots organization led by undocumented immigrants and people of color who have been oppressed by the immigration enforcement system. The organization supports and engages with people detained at the Northwest Detention Center who organize for their own survival and protest against the detention and deportation regime. La Resistencia is working to end the detention of immigrants and stop deportations.
Mohamad Saleh [filmmaker] is the protagonist and co-producer of Severed. He is 19 years old and lived his entire life in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, until escaping the genocide in May 2024. Mohamad just completed his high school matriculation exams and plans to study nursing. He is an intern at Donkeysaddle Projects. Mohamad will participate via Zoom from Cairo, Egypt.
Jen Marlowe [filmmaker] is the director of Severed, and the founder of Donkeysaddle Projects, an organization that integrates storytelling, political education and activism in the fight to build a world liberated from state violence in all its manifestations. She serves on the boards of Black Lives Matter-WA and the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice, and is a founding company member of Dunya Productions-Seattle. Jen is also a Consulting Producer for Just Vision.
Additional Co-sponsors Include:
Multitude Films is an independent production company dedicated to transformative culture change through nonfiction storytelling. They are committed to care at every stage of our work and aim to shift norms across our industry — with a vision of a film industry that values and rewards projects directed and crewed by teams of color, LGBTQ filmmakers, filmmakers with disabilities, working class filmmakers, and women.
Black Lives Matter-WA‘s mission is to dismantle anti-black systems, policies, and outcomes that lead to the oppression, torture, and death of black and brown people. BLM-WA is intentional about building collective power by ensuring that those most affected are not just participants, but the architects of our movement for change. BLM-WA’s leadership prioritizes the inclusion of queer, and trans individuals, as well as those with disabilities, reflecting the communities BLM-WA serves.

Palestine Narrates: Movie: Foragers
2025-08-16 | TBA
Elderly Palestinians are caught between their right to forage their own land and the harsh restrictions imposed by their occupiers on the basis of preservation.
