Palestinian Film Festival 2025 To Tell Tales Of Resilience, Nostalgia And Hope

Stories of nostalgia, resilience and history are set to screen across the country at the 2025 Palestinian Film Festival, giving cinemagoers in Australia a valuable chance to see both feature films and documentaries created by the people of Palestine.

The festival has come a long way since its first edition in 2007, says the Festival’s director and co-founder Naser Shakhtour. A Palestinian-Australian technologist, Naser explains to City Hub that he began the festival because he wanted to see films from Palestine in cinemas.

“There were two films – Divine Intervention by Elia Suleiman and Reel Bad Arabs – that I wanted to see on the big screen,” Naser says. “I pitched them to both small and big festivals, and none of them accepted them. So I got pissed off and I thought, ‘Well, how difficult is it to screen them?’ And as soon as I decided that, somehow the world conspired to help me do it. Another six films came my way, people were interested and cinemas were welcoming to the idea of having a Palestinian film festival.”

Now in its 13th instalment, the Palestinian Film Festival aims to capture the full complexity of Palestinian life and culture. Narrative films making their debut at the festival include The Teacher from Oscar-nominated filmmaker Farah Nabulsi, which follows a school teacher who struggles to balance his roles as freedom fighter and mentor to a student, and the feminist comedy Thank You For Banking With Us about two sisters navigating patriarchal systems after their father’s passing.

There are a number of documentaries present at this year’s Palestinian Film Festival too, including the compilation of shorts made under bombardment in Gaza From Ground Zero, as well as a pre-invasion story of four men’s lives in Gazan Tales. A large majority of the films have been shot in Occupied Palestine, despite a lack of tangible growth in the film industry as a result of the occupation.

 Palestinian Film Festival aims to capture complexities

Although the ongoing Israeli invasion and genocide in Gaza has dictated much of how many have seen Palestine in the last year and a half, the Palestinian Film Festival gives people a chance to see stories about life and culture in Palestine told by its people.

“The media and the Western world wants to narrate our story,” Naser says. “They want to tell you that we look this way, behave this way. What the Film Festival and other forms of Palestinian art are trying to do is say that we are not different, that we have a lot of commonality between us and everyone else. Yes, we have other challenges, but what we see from the occupation is just the tip of the iceberg.

“Underneath it, there are lots of stories of beauty, love, disappointments and family challenges. Like any other society we are complex, and if the festival doesn’t create a space to allow for reflection on that, we’re not doing Palestine any favours. If it becomes a propaganda festival, that’s totally wrong. We’re a festival for Palestine to show all its complexity and colours.”

Naser states that the demographic of people who come to see this wide array of films has always been very multicultural, and that anyone can come along. “It’s open to everyone: we get people from all walks of life, and all walks of politics. You have people from the extreme right to the extreme left in one place, all watching one film and clapping, laughing or crying from the same thing.”

“We want people to feel hopeful”

Though he says there’s always a bit of healthy anxiety associated with the festival each year, Naser adds that there’s a tremendous amount of excitement for it, too. “We look forward to it: our audiences love seeing us, and we love seeing them. Like with anything, the proof is in the pudding. When people come in and we see the reactions on their faces, it’s really rewarding.”

What does Naser hope audiences will get out of the 2025 Palestinian Film Festival? “This year specifically, given the intensity of the genocidal war on Palestine, we want people to feel hopeful and to have a little bit of resilience in them. We’re not a news agency; we want to show that there’s love, resilience, and people who want to create a hopeful future for everyone.”

The 2025 Palestinian Film Festival screens in Sydney from May 1st to 4th, and nationwide from May 1st to 11th. See the full program here.