NOVEMBER 19 - December 03, 2021
barbican cinemas | ica | curzon soho | soas
LITTLE PALESTINE: DIARY OF A SIEGE
ABDALLAH AL-KHATIB | 2021 | 83’
tuesDAY 30 NOVEMBER | 18:20
CURZON SOHO, SHAFTESBURY AVENUE, W1D 5DY
The Yarmouk district in Damascus was home to the biggest Palestinian refugee camp in the world. When the Syrian revolution broke, Bashar Al-Assad's regime saw it as a refuge for rebels and resistance and set up a siege. Gradually deprived of food, medicine and electricity, Yarmouk was cut off. In the four years leading up to his own expulsion by ISIS, Yarmouk-born documentary maker, Abdallah Al-Khatib, recorded the daily life of the besieged inhabitants. What we see is a reality of bombings, displacement and starvation combined with music, love and joy. Hundreds of lives were irredeemably transformed by war and siege – from Al-Khatib’s mother, who became nurse to the elderly at the camp, to the fiercest activists whose passion for Palestine got gradually undermined by hunger. Little Palestine premiered at the 2021 Vision de Reel, winning the Interreligious Award, shedding light on the sense and meaning of life.