The Palestinian Film Festival 2016
Image: Fred Phelps (Source: YouTube)
Compared with other international film festivals, The Palestinian Film Festival is shorter and has a smaller selection, but that in no way reflects the quality and range of the program.
The four days of Sydney screenings includes feature films, documentaries and shorts, covering diverse subject matter and genres. The quality of the filmmaking is exceptional and the script concepts reveal creativity, imagination, depth and charm that is unexpected and delightful.
Nun Wa Zaytoun is a cinematic feast, taking the viewer from one dusty, dry town to another, introducing personalities that reflect the psyche of the nation, silhouetting solitary trees against a burnt orange sky and setting it all to an evocative soundtrack.
The pivotal consequences of the 1967 Israeli-Palestinian war are examined at the human level in Villa Touma. Three sisters seclude themselves in a villa, maintaing a facade of normalcy based on denial, until their visiting niece begins chipping away at their wall of pretence. A visually beautiful film with complex characters and speckles of humour in amongst the solemnity.
In a more thoughtful approach to the prison drama genre, 3000 Nights tells the story of a woman wrongly imprisoned for terrorism activities, who gives birth to a child and raises it while incarcerated. The film looks at conflicting morals and the volatility of emotion and reason in an unnatural, dehumanising environment.
The collection of shorts is a package of all-sorts. Ave Maria is a hilarious juxtaposition of nuns who have taken a vow of silence trying to assist an Israeli family who have crashed their car into the convent wall, and who are observing the restrictions of The Sabbath.
In The Future, They Ate From The Finest Porcelain is a sci-fi fantasy/political commentary on the manipulation of truth in historical records. Seemingly shot through a sepia filter, it uses live action, CGI and historical photographs.
It is definitely worth trying to catch one or two or more of these films if you can. (RB)
Nov 17-20. Palace Norton Street, 99 Norton St, Leichhardt. $16-$102 (multi-event pass). Tickets & info: www.palestinianfilmfestival.com.au
BY RITA BRATOVICH
