Skip to main content

Palestinian Sunbird Shorts Program 1

Palestinian Sunbird Shorts Program 1
Palestinian Sunbird Shorts Program 1
SYNOPSIS

SON OF THE STREETS

The Palestinian boy Khodor grows up without ID in the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut. In the struggle for citizenship, his right to education and health care, harrowing family secrets come to light. Khodor's parents have both died, so he grows up with his stepmother. The 13-year-old is cool and relaxed in front of his friends of the same age, but his new family often feels the pent-up aggression of the pubescent. His stepmother and half-sisters are desperately trying to get him a document that proves his existence and gives him the right to education, health care and freedom of movement outside the Palestinian refugee camp Shatila in Beirut. Son Of The Streets describes how hopelessness paired with the energy of an adolescent is discharged into aggression and despair. Because the dream of a self-determined life is still a long way off.

Documentary
Poland, Germany, Lebanon, Palestine
2020
Arabic with English subtitles
30 minutes
16+

Director: Mohammed Almughanni
Cinematography: Mateusz Chukhnovsky
Editing: Mohammed Almughanni
Sound: Muntasir Abu Aloul, Shimon Koharsky, Ravao Novak.
Colorist: Edgar Hryszczuk
Producer: Agata Golanska

Born in Gaza in 1994, Mohammed Almughanni is a director, screenwriter and cinematographer. He pursued his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Film Directing at Łódź Film School in Poland. In the last few years he worked on films in different countries such as Cuba, Palestine, Denmark, China, Jordan, Lebanon, Poland and Germany. He has created several documentary and narrative films, including Blacklisted (2020), “Son of the streets” (2020) “Falafala” (2019), “Operation” (2018), “Where’s the Donkey” (2018), “Shujayya” (2015) and “Halawan” (2012). His films were selected and awarded at numerous film festivals around the world.

YAFFA

Yaffa is a short experimental film in which space and time become meshed together to form the fragments we create our stories from. In those pieces of images, memories arise and stories retell themselves. It is through our mutual time, words, explorations and spaces that I realized my grandfather gifted me a home.

Experimental
Canada, 2019
English, Arabic and French
8 minutes
16+

Director: Nada El-Omari
Cinematography: Phil Hoffman, Majdi El-Omari, Basma El-Omari, Hana El-Omari, Nevine El Nossery, Abeer Salman, Mikhaëlle Salazar, Nada El-Omari
Editing: Sonya Mwambu

Nada El-Omari is a filmmaker and writer currently based in Montreal. Of Palestinian and Egyptian origin and raised in Montreal, her work, practice and research interests centre on the intergenerational transmissions of memories, displacement and the stories of belonging and identity through a poetic, hybrid lens. El-Omari holds a BFA in Film Production and MFA in Film from York University.

SIRI MIRI

Sick of their routine-run life, two millennials turn to the help of Siri in order to spice up their monotonous life, only to find out that Siri is oblivious to the unique situation they live in.

Fiction, Comedy
Palestine, 2020
Arabic and English with Arabic and English subtitles
6 minutes
16+

Director: Luay Awwad
Screenwriter: Luay Awwad
Cinematography: Nour Abu Kamal
Editing: Luay Awwad
Sound: Yazan Faris, Issam Murad
Production: Dar Al-Kalima University College of Arts and Culture

Luay Awwad is a 23 year-old filmmaker based in Palestine. He graduated with a BA degree in filmmaking from Dar Al-Kalima University. Awwad has written and directed many short films (I Was Born a Celebrity, Bint Al Balad) and also worked in many Award-Winning films (The Present, In Vitro).

 

BETHLEHEM 2001

A young Palestinian wanders between his current reflections and his childhood memories of the military invasion and siege of Bethlehem. He tries to understand how his parents could lead him through those difficult times, hoping that would help him cope with the present time.

Fiction, Drama
Palestine, 2020
Arabic with English subtitles
15 minutes
16+

Director: Ibrahim Handal
Screenwriter: Ibrahim Handal
Cast: Muhammad Mughrabi,  Yousef Abushkaidem, Hind Abushkaidem, Tarek Abusalameh, Karam Al-Salaymeh
Cinematography: Ibrahim Handal
Editing: Ibrahim Handal, Belal Abu Alia
Sound: Saliba Rishmawi, Ibrahim Handal, Issam Murad
Production: Dar Al-Kalima University College of Arts and Culture

 

Ibrahim Handal is a Palestinian filmmaker and Cinematographer from Bethlehem. In 2019 he obtained his BFA in Cinematography at Dar Al-Kalima University. Ibrahim directed several narrative and experimental short films and he also worked as Director of Photography on various short films including the Cannes Cinefondation 2019 winner Ambience by Wissam Al Jafari. He also worked on several feature film productions in Palestine in the camera and lighting departments. Ibrahim is in development of his first feature film.

URANUS

“When great people die, they turn into a glowing star up in the sky." There is more to this myth. When the dreams of Gazan youth die, they get sent out to a distant, cold planet. However, every night, and from the top of their homes, and from the seashore Merna and others like her resuscitate their dreams. They bring Uranus "illegally" with no Visa or travel permission.
Uranus is a philosophical documentary about space and no space. In this short film, the director Aya Matrabiee examines the youth's relationship with the cosmos and takes a closer look at a sacred entanglement between women and the sky; an entanglement grown to be special love to the colour blue. Gaza and Uranus, two destinations of one childhood.

Documentary
Palestine, 2020
Arabic with English subtitles
12 minutes
16+

Director: Aya Ahmed Matrabie
Screenwriter: Aya Ahmed Matrabie
Cinematography: Aya Ahmed Matrabie
Editing: Aya Ahmed Matrabie
Producer/s: Andalib Shehada, Community Media Center

Aya Ahmed Matrabie is an audiovisual artist. She was born in 1999 in Gaza, Palestine and recently graduated from the School of Business Administration. She has been doing creative documentary filmmaking independently for more than three years. Her films Dara, The R, and recently Uranus, have screened in several international festivals and received official Selections. As a young Gazan filmmaker, filmmaking is her only means to cross continents.

CROWNED BY BAY LEAVES

The documentary goes back on  El-Hakawati Theatre’s history bringing up its past as a traveling band to becoming the first Palestinian theatre house. This institution was originally created in order to emulate the reality and difficulties of the society in Jerusalem. Thanks to François Abu Salem, El- Hakawati became a place where performances were given and where the audience was invited to attend. 

Documentary
Palestine, 2021
Arabic with English subtitles
14 minutes
16+

Director: Hayat Amjad Labban
Cinematography: Alaa Aldaya
Editing: Hayat Amjad Labban
Production: Dar Al-Kalima University College of Arts and Culture

 

Hayat Amjad Labban is a student at Dar Al-Kalima University College of Arts and Culture in Film Production. She recently graduated from her theatre studies and now works as a freelance photographer. She practices creative writing in theatre, film and animation, and completed a contemporary dance workshop.