London Palestine Film Festival 2024
NOVEMBER 15 - 29
barbican cinemas | bertha dochouse | curzon CINEMAS | the garden cinema | GENESIS CINEMA | ICA | Riverside Studios | SOAS UNIVERSITY | Sands Films Studio
We present our 2024 edition with a selection of this year’s most anticipated films reflecting on Palestine alongside firm favourites from throughout the years, spotlighting stories of political realities as experienced by Palestinians at home and in the diaspora through the creative lens of cinema.
Given the urgent circumstances in the ongoing war, we open this year’s festival with an exclusive, commissioned live performance based on true events; in A Grain of Sand, theatre director Elias Matar presents an experience where imagination is crucial to navigate the violence. Closing LPFF 2024 we will have a multi-cinema screening of From Ground Zero, a portmanteau of films made in Gaza over the past year. These two sessions bookend an eclectic selection of cinema from award-winning titles to selections of short films.
A GRAIN OF SAND حبة رمل
+facilitated discussion
Friday 15 November | 19:00 | BARBICAN CINEMA 1
OPENING NIGHT
One-woman show based on real events in Gaza. Performed by Sarah Agha, written and directed by Elias Matar, commissioned by London Palestine Film Festival.
The roller, the life, the fight +screen talk
Saturday 16 November | 15:00 | THE GARDEN CINEMA
Hazem arrives in Belgium after a painful journey from Gaza. At the same time, Elettra arrives in Brussels to study documentary film. Their first moments together reveal a triggering desire to know each other, the camera becomes the tool they share for understanding.
FAMILIAR PHANTOMS TRIPLE BILL +Screen talk
Saturday 16 November | 18:30 | ICA
Familiar Phantoms is inspired by anecdotes from Larissa Sansour’s own family history and her old childhood in Bethlehem, making it her most personal film to date. This 2023 short will be screening alongside two of Sansour’s acclaimed shorts.
SHORTS SESSION: REAL VISIONs
Sunday 17 November | 14:30 | THE GARDEN CINEMA
This selection of non-fiction shorts play cross images, dreams, realities and memories. What proof do images reveal? How do visible truths affect our understanding of actualities, and our future existence?
WE NO LONGER PREFER MOUNTAINS +SCREEN TALK
Sunday 17 November | 18:00 | ICA
An exploration of the social and political conditions of the Druze community in northern occupied Palestine since 1948; the environment is a metaphor for the group's fraught, complicated social position.
To a land unknown +Screen talk
Monday 18 November | 18:10 | BARBICAN CINEMA 2
In Mahdi Fleifel’s raw, resonant drama, a Palestinian refugee living on the fringes of society in Athens gets ripped off by a smuggler and sets out to seek revenge.
To a land unknown +Screen talk
Tuesday 19 November | 18:20 | CURZON SOHO
In Mahdi Fleifel’s raw, resonant drama, a Palestinian refugee living on the fringes of society in Athens gets ripped off by a smuggler and sets out to seek revenge.
SHORTS SESSION: DREAMS AND GHOSTS
Wednesday 20 November | 20:45 | BARBICAN CINEMA 3
In this selection of short films, characters face the visible versus the invisible. In a world where the past is always present, a yearning for a better future leads the way.
no other land
+screen talk
Thursday 21 November | 20:30 | BARBICAN CINEMA 1
For 5+ years, Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist, filmed his community of Masafer Yatta being destroyed by Israel's occupation, as he builds an unlikely alliance with an Israeli journalist who wants to join his fight.
Book Launch: Afterlife of Images by Azza ElHassan
Friday 22 November | 19:00 | SOAS UNIVERSITY
Based on the practice-based creative methodology of Palestinian filmmaker and researcher Azza El Hassan, The Afterlife of Palestinian Images explores how colonial violence alters visual objects - which in turn affects how a society and culture relates to its own images.
Izkor: Slaves of Memory +screen talk
Saturday 23 November | 18:00 | CURZON SOHO
Gathered from all around the world, Israelis today are united by an “official” collective memory that led to the national formation of Israel. How has this collective memory developed? What are the symbols that contribute to its strength? And to what purpose is it being used?
A Fidai Film
Sunday 24 November | 16:30 | ICA
Investigating the looting of Palestinian films which took place in Beirut in 1982, the film uses this event as a premise in order to make visible materials hidden in Israeli archives, and proposes a counter-narrative of a continuous history of appropriation.
Lyd
Monday 25 November | 18:20 | CURZON HOXTON
This sci-fi documentary tells a story of a city that once connected Palestine to the world: Mixing testimonies of extreme violence with speculations on what the potential of this city could have brought, this documentary follows the rise and fall of the city of Lyd.
SHORTS SESSION: STICKING TOGETHER
Tuesday 26 November | 18:20 | CURZON HOXTON
This selection has a focus on solidarity and camaraderie. Animation, drama, and comedy: Some based on true stories, each of these films present the need and importance of bonds and kinship in dire times.
Edward Said: The Last Interview
Tuesday 26 November | 18:20 | BARBICAN CINEMA 3
This screening of Mike Dibb’s celebrated extended conversation with Edward Said coincides with the reissue of the groundbreaking literary scholar’s The Question of Palestine through Fitzcarraldo Editions
ORAIB TOUkAN: Imaging the image
Wednesday 27 November | 18:20 | BERTHA DOCHOUSE
Three of Oraib Toukan’s films borne out of her study of photography, film and text: Over images both found and created, bringing us memories, reveries, and snapshots of the everyday, we hear the voices of eminent scholars and practitioners.
THE TEACHER
Thursday 28 November | 20:15 | RIVERSIDE STUDIOS
From the BAFTA-winning, Oscar-nominated director, Farah Nabulsi, comes her long awaited first feature film: Saleh Bakri, plays the eponymous school teacher trying to protect his students from a life stifled under Israeli occupation.
From Ground Zero
(East London)
Friday 29 November | 18:30 | GENESIS CINEMA
From Ground Zero is a portmanteau of 22 short films made in Gaza over that past year. Initiated by Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, the project brings us the voices of 22 Gazan filmmakers telling untold stories of the current war on film.
From Ground Zero
(west London)
Friday 29 November | 20:15 | RIVERSIDE STUDIOS
From Ground Zero is a portmanteau of 22 short films made in Gaza over that past year. Initiated by Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, the project brings us the voices of 22 Gazan filmmakers telling untold stories of the current war on film.
From Ground Zero (SOUTH LONDON)
Friday 29 November | 20:00 | SANDS FILMS CINEMA
From Ground Zero is a portmanteau of 22 short films made in Gaza over that past year. Initiated by Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, the project brings us the voices of 22 Gazan filmmakers telling untold stories of the current war on film.
OUR SPONSORS
WITH ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FROM
EVENTS IN 2024
From Ground Zero (SOUTH LONDON)
Tuesday 3 December | 20:00 | SANDS FILMS CINEMA
From Ground Zero is a portmanteau of 22 short films made in Gaza over that past year. Initiated by Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, the project brings us the voices of 22 Gazan filmmakers telling untold stories of the current war on film.
PASt EVENT: TOMORROW’s FREEDOM +Screen talk
FRIDAY 8 MARCH 2024 | 18:20 | CURZON MAYFAIR
Marwan Barghouti is serving five life sentences in Israeli prison; Tomorrow’s Freedom captures his story, and the tireless spirit of a people fighting for justice.
