Bristol Palestine Film Festival finds reconciliation after last year's cancellations
The 14th edition of the Bristol Palestine Film Festival took place this year in the English city in the wake of last year’s cancellation of two festival events by the Arnolfini arts centre.
In November 2023 the Arnolfini withdrew its offer to host a screening of Darin J Sallam’s coming-of-age film Farha and a live poetry night headlined by rapper and activist Lowkey, saying the events could be “construed as political activity”.
The Bristol gallery was accused of censoring Palestinian voices and was subject to an artist-led boycott and demands for an explanation, particularly as Israel’s war on Gaza had already claimed thousands of civilian lives.
But this moment ended up being a catalyst for positive change.
In May, the Arnolfini issued a public statement of apology and its CEO resigned. After a mediation process, the festival announced it had reconciled with the venue, which had shown it was prepared to change and make amends.
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Festival curators told Middle East Eye that no restrictions were imposed on this year's programming.
Finishing on Friday, the festival began with From Ground Zero, a collection of 22 short films made in Gaza over the last year of war, and continued with a weekend of events that included Palestinian singer Reem Kelani, whose most recent single, “If I Must Die”, is set to the poem of the same name by the Palestinian writer and activist Refaat Alareer, who was killed in Gaza.
On the opening night, before the screening of From Ground Zero, the Arnolfini’s new CEO Suzanne Rolt addressed the room and affirmed the centre’s “determination to do better”, revealing it had committed to long-term “cultural awareness training” with Palestinian social activist Sally Azzam, a festival trustee, in partnership with local charity Bridges for Communities.
From Ground Zero is an initiative launched by Palestinian film-maker Rashid Masharawi, who is from Gaza. He collected 22 short films from people in the besieged strip living under Israeli bombardment.
The films, which were shot, edited and exported in the midst of the war, feature raw footage in mini documentary form as well as the inventive use of art, stop motion and poetry.
“It was really emotional to have the opening at the Arnolfini and to choose that specific film. It was a very deliberate decision. It had to be hard hitting,” Sally Azzam told Middle East Eye. “People were coming out in complete shock. The audience didn’t clap at the end, they just stayed sitting down until the lights went on.”
“Nobody thought a year later we would be sitting at the Arnolfini, but when Bristol Artists for Palestine called off the boycott and we issued a statement, people trusted the festival's judgment,” Azzam said.
“Boycotting is an important tool, but when we see organisations making genuine efforts to change, we have to be open to working with them to move forward.”
Art and food
The following evening, Azzam cooked a beautifully presented meal for 100 people at the “food and film” pairing at Bristol’s Palestine Museum.
While Israeli society attempts to culturally appropriate Palestinian cuisine and dishes, it felt relevant to come together to celebrate some specially prepared Arabic food, followed by stuffed dates.
Alongside the dates, we had ethically sourced Palestinian olive oil and zaatar, which are available in the UK and help support a small but crucial industry in the occupied West Bank.
During a time of deep collective grief, the dining experience was also a positive way to meet other allies in the community and to reject succumbing to hopelessness.
Back at the Arnolfini, a particular highlight was this year’s powerful documentary Where Olive Trees Weep.
This film features direct and urgent testimonies from Palestinians who have been imprisoned and held in administrative detention without trial.
Activist and journalist Ashira Darwish included detailed accounts of psychological and physical torture after she was arrested for peacefully protesting in Nabi Salih, the central West Bank village where activist Ahed Tamimi and her family are from.
Renowned physician and trauma therapist Gabor Mate features prominently, offering his commentary and insights on how such traumas affect individuals and a population. It makes for uncomfortable but vital viewing.
The film concludes with a chilling statement from the film’s protagonist Darwish, shot back in 2022. “We’ve finished this chapter of Palestinians pleading for the world to come and rescue us. We can rescue ourselves if you at least stop supporting the machine,” she says.
“If the machine is ostracised, then we can keep going. If you can’t be our voice, just at least don’t put a penny that goes to the bullet that shoots our children.”
Palestine's Nelson Mandela
Another standout documentary screened in Bristol was Tomorrow’s Freedom, about Marwan Barghouti, the man often referred to as “Palestine’s Nelson Mandela”, a prisoner labelled a terrorist and meant to be forgotten.
Barghouti is in the 24th year of a prison term of four consecutive life sentences plus 40 years. His giant stencilled portraits are everywhere on the walls across the West Bank, in streets in Gaza and Beirut, and in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria.
Tomorrow’s Freedom follows the political leader’s closest family members as they tell his story from childhood to prison to their tireless campaign for his release. This year, there have been reports of his brutal assault by Israeli prison guards.
The screening took place at The Cube - a welcoming hub of solidarity adorned with Palestinian flags and bunting from the entrance all the way to the cinema auditorium.
Other productions at the festival experimented with genre, such as Rami Younis and Sarah Ema Friedland’s sci-fi documentary Lyd, which imagines what the city now part of Israel and known as Lod would look like if the Nakba never happened.
The artist Larissa Sansour put on a double bill of short films - an installation featuring an Arabic-language opera, and her latest creation Familiar Phantoms.
Apart from recent work, the festival showed Leila and the Wolves, 40 years on from the film’s release in 1984.
In it, trailblazing director Heiny Srour, who was born into a Lebanese Jewish family, attempts to reframe the history of the region from a feminist point of view.
Mixing archive footage, re-enactments and imaginary sequences, the film creatively explores various moments in Palestine’s long history of resistance and the way in which women actively participated and contributed in the struggle for liberation.
By doing so, many Palestinian women were challenging sexism in their own society while simultaneously fighting against colonialism and western imperialism. (A particularly memorable scene depicts women smuggling bullets in their hair and clothes during an elaborate village wedding procession.)
Here is a festival that feels robust as well as hugely successful, with all donations going to two initiatives dedicated to supporting Palestinian film-makers, FilmLab Palestine, based in Ramallah, and the children’s animation workshop "My Story Became a Film", based in Gaza.
In these times of deep darkness, that is something to hold onto.
More information about the Bristol Palestine Film Festival can be found here
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