A selection of documentaries about the Nakba and its aftermath.

Remembering the Nakba (1948)
Two film screenings: May 11-12 2010
Cinéma du Parc – cinemaduparc.com
3575 av. du Parc

* May 11 9pm
(admission: 8$)

Over their Dead Bodies: Tantura
Arab Lotfy – Egypt-Lebanon 2008
112 min. – eng. subt.

* May 12 9pm
(admission: 11$ / 8$ for youth and elders)

Zahra – Mohammad Bakri
Palestine 2009 – 63 min. – original arabic version, fr. subt.

preceded by

Arthur Balfour and Me – Charlotte Cornic
U.K. 2007 – 11 min. – fr. subt.

and followed by

Strangers in my Home – Sahera Dirbas
Palestine 2007 – 37 min.
original arabic, hebrew, english version, eng. subt.

descriptions below

Over Their Dead Bodies: Tantura, the Forgotten Massacre

Director: Arab Loutfi
Egypt-Lebanon, 2008 – 113 minutes

This film explores testimonies from surviving residents of Tantura, a Palestinian village just south of Haifa, which was “cleansed” by Jewish Haganah forces in May 1948. Many Palestinians were killed and hundreds were imprisoned. Those who survived fled to the nearby village of Fureidis, which was spared destruction when Jewish residents of nearby towns interceded on its behalf. Other survivors became refugees in the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Arab Lotfy lives in Cairo, has made 30 films since graduating from Egypt’s High Cinema Institute in 1976, and has conducted workshops on women’s issues in Jordan and Canada.

Zahra

Director: Mohammed Bakri
Palestine, 2009 – 63 minutes

Zahra, a Palestinian native of a village in Galilee, is the central character in this documentary which tells the story, through a lyrical narrative, of how the Palestinian population of Israel has been radically transformed from a majority to a disenfranchised minority in their own homeland.

Mohammed Bakri is a distinguished Palestinian actor and filmmaker whose documentary “Jenin, Jenin” won Best Film at the 2002 Carthage International Film Festival.

Arthur Balfour and Me

Director: Charlotte Cornic
Scotland 2007 – 11 minutes

This is a personal story about how the actions of a politician born in 1848 on a sumptuous family estate in Scotland continues to affect the life of a young woman born in a refugee camp in Lebanon in 1971 and now seeking asylum in Glasgow.

Stranger in my Home

Director: Sahera Dirbas
Palestine 2007 – 37 minutes

The story of eight Palestinian families who have been turned into refugees in their own city. After forty years they recall the events that occurred in the Moghrabi Quarter of Jerusalem during the war of 1967. Each family goes to West Jerusalem to see the house which was taken from them in 1948.

Sahera Dirbas was born in Haifa in 1964, has published three books about destroyed Palestinian villages, and works as a freelance TV producer & independent researcher for foreign TV networks.

with the support of: Cinéma du Parc, CJPP (Coalition pour la Justice et la Paix en Palestine), Tadamon, AMP-MAP (Medical Aid for Palestine), NCCAR-CNRCA (National Council on Canada-Arab Relations), PAJU (Palestinian and Jewish Unity), Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, CJP-UQAM