Tag Archives: Film

April 25, 2022: Wisconsin Premiere of the Film Boycott

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Just Vision’s new documentary, Boycott, will have its Wisconsin Premiere at the Milwaukee Film Festival on Monday, April 25 at 5:45pm. Boycott follows the stories of a news publisher, an attorney and a speech therapist, who, when forced to choose between their jobs and their political beliefs, launch legal battles that expose an attack on freedom of speech across America.

The film traces the impact of state legislation passed in 33 states – including Wisconsin – designed to penalize individuals and companies that choose to boycott Israel due to its human rights record. A legal thriller with “accidental plaintiffs” at the center of the story, Boycott is a bracing look at the far-reaching implications of anti-boycott legislation and an inspiring tale of everyday Americans standing up to protect our rights in an age of shifting politics and threats to freedom of speech.

November 8 – 11
The Other Israel Film Festival

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The Other Israel Film Festival
Streaming two films from Breaking the Silence

The First 54 Years: An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation
The latest from Director and Breaking the Silence Executive Board member Avi Mograbi has been making the rounds at film festivals around the world. Based on testimonies of former IDF soldiers and officers who served in the occupied territories since 1967, the film analyzes the various methods put in place to keep the occupied Palestinian population under control, as a case study in how to maintain a prolonged, and even perpetual, military regime.

This extraordinary journey from the birth of the occupation until today, told through first-hand accounts, is woven together through Mograbi’s outstanding storytelling, and is well worth watching for anyone interested in how the occupation came to be what it is today.

To see the film online, purchase a ticket through 10:45 pm Central on Nov. 11. (Use discount code BREOI21 for 20% off.)

Mission: Hebron
One of three shorts in the festival, this film is based on a series of interviews with Breaking the Silence testifiers who speak about their service in the city of Hebron, the second largest Palestinian city in the West Bank with an Israeli settlement in its center. Together, they describe a horrifying yet mundane routine of manning checkpoints, invading homes, nighttime arrests, shooting protesters and so on. This fast-moving short film, directed by the renowned Israeli director Rona Segal, has been featured at film festivals around the world including the highly prestigious IDFA Festival in the Netherlands, and won the best short documentary prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival. It has recently been longlisted for an Academy Award.

Admission is free, but register before 10:45 pm Central on Nov. 11.

September 13, 2021
Arab Americans: We’re Not White, a Talk by Amer Zahr

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Amer Zahr, founder and producer of the annual 1001 Laughs Ramallah Comedy Festival, is a rising star in both the US and the Middle East. Amer is an Arab-American comedian, speaker, political activist, writer, and adjunct professor at the University of Detroit, Mercy School of Law. “Comedy is my form of protest,” says Amer!

Join us for a conversation between Amer Zahr and Nevine El Nossery, Director of the Middle East Studies Program. We will discuss Amer’s upbringing as an Arab American, how comedy and law intersect, and how it is possible to reconcile multiple identities. We will also talk about how American society and politics affect the lives of immigrants in general and Arab-Americans in particular.

We encourage you to watch Amer Zahr’s documentary, We’re Not White, before his talk on September 13. It’s a very thought-provoking educational resource for talking to students about intersectional matters related to race, ethnicity, and other aspects of identity.

Watch My Neighbourhood, the story of Sheikh Jarrah

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A remarkable, nonviolent struggle against settlement expansion in East Jerusalem

Mohammed El Kurd is a Palestinian boy growing up in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in the heart of East Jerusalem. When Mohammed turns 11, his family is forced to give up part of their home to Israeli settlers, who are leading a campaign of court-sanctioned evictions to guarantee Jewish control of the area.

Shortly after their displacement, Mohammed’s family and other residents begin holding unarmed protests against the evictions, determined not to lose their homes for good. In a surprising turn, they are quickly joined by scores of Israeli supporters who are horrified to see what is being done in their name. Among them is Jewish West Jerusalem resident Zvi Benninga and his sister Sara, who develop a strong relationship with Mohammed and his family as they take on a leading role in organizing the protests.

Through their personal stories, My Neighbourhood goes beyond the sensational headlines that normally dominate discussions of Jerusalem and captures voices rarely heard, of those striving for a future of equality and pluralism in the city.

My Neighbourhood follows Mohammed as he comes of age in the midst of unrelenting tension and remarkable cooperation in his backyard. Highlighting Mohammed’s own reactions to the highly volatile situation, reflections from family members and other evicted residents, accounts of Israeli protesters and interviews with Israeli settlers, the film chronicles the resolve of a neighbourhood and the support it receives from the most unexpected of places.

My Neighbourhood is directed and produced by Rebekah Wingert-Jabi, who documented Mohammed’s story over two years, and acclaimed filmmaker Julia Bacha. It is the latest production by Just Vision, an award-winning team of Palestinian, Israeli, North and South American filmmakers, journalists and human rights advocates dedicated to telling the stories of Israelis and Palestinians working nonviolently to achieve freedom, dignity, equality and human security in the region.

MAY 17, 2020
CENSORED! Al Jazeera’s Documentary on the Israel Lobby-USA

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Massachusetts Peace Action, 5/11/20

Screening of a one-hour summary of the 4-part Al Jazeera investigative report that was never allowed to air, followed by Q&A. 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Eastern

The film was made by Al Jazeera during 2016, but was censored because Qatar, the gas-rich Gulf emirate that funds Al Jazeera, came under intense Israel lobby pressure not to air the film.

The film exposes the efforts of Israel and its lobbyists to spy on, smear and intimidate US citizens who support Palestinian human rights, especially BDS – the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. It shows that Israel’s semi-covert black-ops government agency, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, is operating this effort in collusion with an extensive network of US-based organizations.

We will stream the video on Zoom, but for better video clarity we recommend that you watch it on Youtube. We will join the Zoom meeting for opening remarks and we will give you the Youtube link and tell you when to press “Play”. We’ll then return to the Zoom meeting for the Q&A.

Register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkduCqrzIjGNAS464q1DBeEFc_hjYH5Z4B; you will receive video and phone codes to join the meeting by email.

Second in a series of online meetings sponsored by Massachusetts Peace Action’s Palestine/Israel Working Group

December 6, 2018
Film: 5 Broken Cameras

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The Marquee Cinema, Union South
1308 West Dayton Street , Madison
7:00 pm

Join UW Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the UW Middle East Studies Program, and the Wisconsin Union Directorate Film and Society & Politics Committees for a screening of the documentary Five Broken Cameras.

The documentary will be followed by a moderated discussion and Q&A with Professor Nevine El Nossery. Five Broken Cameras follows the resistance of one Palestinian farmer and his village against encroachments by the Israeli army.

September 16, 2017
Film: Bar Bahar/In Between

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Vilas Hall, Room 4070
UW Campus
7:00 pm [Map]

Bar Bahar/In Between is a controversial film made by a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and produced and marketed as an Israeli film.

Israel | 2016 | DCP | 102 min. | Arabic, Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Maysaloun Hamoud
Cast: Mouna Hawa, Sana Jammelieh, Shaden Kanboura
Criminal lawyer Laila, DJ/bartender Salma and religious student Nur are three Arab Israeli young women sharing an apartment in Tel Aviv. When Nur’s conservative fiancé encourages her to leave her studies and the city to marry him, her more secular roommates face their own struggles to balance modernity with tradition. Unfolding in a city where the protagonists are partly seen as outsiders, In Between candidly and movingly depicts their special friendship and unique bond.

The film has been praised as an honest portrayal of the contradictions facing Palestinian citizens of Israel (especially women), and criticized as a stereotyped and one-sided view of traditional Palestinian culture and of the town of Umm Al-Fahm that advances the Israeli agenda and glosses over the underlying facts of Israeli relations with Palestinians of all types.

There will be a discussion following the film.

Co-sponsored by the UW Middle East Studies Department and the Cinemathique film society.

Umm al-Fahm is a Palestinian town in an area of of Israel known as the Little Triangle with 300,000 Palestinian Israelis. Netanyahu is talking about transferring the Little Triangle from Israel to a future Palestinian state in return for the annexation of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank. See “Netanyahu alarms Palestinians with talk of land swap” by Jonathan Cook.

May 4, 2017
Film: “Tickling Giants”

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Free speech is not settled law,
and democracy is not easily won

 

Elvehjem Building L150
455 N Park St
University of Wisconsin-Madison
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM CDT

Please join the University of Wisconsin-Madison Middle East Studies Program for a showing of Tickling Giants, a powerful story of the “Jon Stewart of Egypt” and the price of laughter in the Mideast (LA Times).

There will also be a short graduation ceremony for certificate students afterward.

ABOUT THE FILM
In the midst of the Egyptian Arab Spring, Bassem Youssef creates the satirical show, “Al Bernameg,” which quickly becomes the most viewed television program in the Middle East, with 30 million viewers per episode. But, in a country where free speech is not settled law, his show becomes as controversial as it is popular. Despite increasing danger, Bassem employs comedy, not violence, to comment on hypocrisy in media, politics, and religion. Tickling Giants follows the “Al Bernameg” team as they discover democracy is not easily won.

October 6, 2016
Film: Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back!

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UW-Madison Multicultural Student Center
Red Gym – 2nd Floor
716 Langdon St, Madison, Wisconsin
7:30 pm

Sponsored by UW-Madison Students for Justice in Palestine.

Film screening of the documentary Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back!, which follows queer activists fighting against Israeli pinkwashing propaganda in their community, providing a strategic primer on intersectional social justice activism.

After the film we will have a friendly discussion about how queer issues and Palestinian issues intersect, and the different opinions and thoughts on the film.

GoFundMe Request by Rafah Filmmaker Fida Qishta

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Fida Qishta, who visited us in Madison in 2014 and 2015 to show her powerful first film Where Should the Birds Fly, has been in film school in California. She is looking for donations to help fund her thesis film Equally Damaged. Please consider a donation via the gofundme link or check. As of today, she is still in need of $2,000.

We still have copies of Where Should the Birds Fly for sale, and one that we can loan for showings. If anyone is interested, let me know.

Thanks,
Barb O.

Dear friends,

I hope you are all doing well. I’m almost done with my Master program in Film and Media Production and will be graduating in September.

I’ll start filming my final thesis film Equally Damaged on July 22nd. Please check my go fund me campaign and give it a kick. Share it, and send it to your friends and mailing list.

https://www.gofundme.com/247ak64

If you’d like to send a check please make it out to me and send it to:

    Fida Qishta
    3409 West Alameda Ave, Apt B
    Burbank, CA 91505

Best, Fida

Director Statement
Growing up in Palestine is pretty hard. A Mid-East conflict zone, every day was a challenge, even life in my close-knit neighborhood was subject to conflicts and destruction. The landscape was constantly changing as homes and streets were destroyed. I always wondered, when I was young, what could make people stop killing each other. I realized as I grew up that the war machine is like a bubble, each side is separated from the other, and neither one is willing to acknowledge the other’s point of view. As a child, I thought the whole world was like my neighborhood. The first time I traveled, it opened my eyes to the world, and I saw things differently from when I was growing up. I felt cheated of normality. This is why I wanted to make a film that shows the damage that conflicts and wars cause on both sides that are involved. People in front of or behind the gun are damaged, and that is what I want to get across with this film. War and conflict can strip away humanity, and yet I believe that love and forgiveness are possible and worth fighting for.

Please help me fund the production of Equally Damaged. I will submit it as my master’s thesis project at the New York Film Academy and will enter it in film festivals. The film is a short , it will run 15-30 minutes. With the resources of the New York Film Academy, I can make Equally Damaged for $10,500.

Thank you to all of you.
Best, Fida

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“You are far more powerful than you have ever imagined.
If you accept this knowledge and base your actions on it, you will be happier than ever before.
You will be able to do things you have only dreamed of doing and achieve anything you want in life.” Ibrahim ElfiqiI (Elfiky)