Film Screening: Arna’s Children
Film Screening Under the Stars…
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Wednesday July 20, 2011
Screening begins at 8:30pm
Bibliotheque DIRA- outdoor lot
2035 St. Laurent (Metro St. Laurent)
Free event. Donations welcome.
Facebook event
Founded in 2006 by Juliano Mer Khamis and others, the Freedom Theatre is a community theatre based in the West Bank city of Jenin, home to one of largest refugee camps in occupied Palestine and the site of the Jenin Massacre in 2002. The Freedom Theatre draws its’ inspiration from the work of Arna Mer Khamis, Juliano’s mother, who founded The Stone Theatre as an alternative education project during the first intifada. To this day, the Freedom Theatre provides a space for children and youth for self-expression, empowerment and resistance through art.
On April 4, 2011, Juliano Mer Khamis was assassinated in Jenin by masked gunmen. Despite his tragic loss, the Freedom Theatre lives on, as does Mer Khamis’ vision of the creative process as a medium for social change. Join us for a screening of Arna’s Children, Mer Khamis’ moving documentary film that chronicles the early days of the Freedom Theatre and the realities of growing up under occupation.
Directors: Juliano Mer Khamis and Danniel Danniel, 2003
Country: Israel/the Netherlands
Language: Arabic and Hebrew, with English subtitles
Running time: 84 min
Heartbreakingly compassionate, this 2003 Israeli documentary by Danniel Danniel and Juliano Mer Khamis, Arna’s son, starkly juxtaposes a Jewish woman’s founding of a theater workshop for Palestinian refugee kids of Jenin in 1989 and her actor son’s quest to discover what happened to these children over a decade later and why. In contrast to media cliches about suicide bombers, the film offers a comprehensive and comprehending portrait of resistance during the second intifada, as we witness in close-up the lives of Palestinian children shaped by a brutal occupation. Arna pioneered methods of engaging with children of Jenin in order to help them find creative outlets for their everyday frustrations, anger, bitterness and fear. Arna’s son Juliano, the director of Arna’s Children, filmed rehearsal periods from 1989 to 1996. A few years later, after his mother’s death and the destruction of the theatre, he went back to see what happened to the children he knew.
The film won “Best Documentary Feature” at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2004.
Rain date is scheduled for Wednesday, July 27th.
Please note that the event will be taking place in an outdoor lot with minimal seating. Be sure to bring a cushion, chair, or blanket.
For more information:
Tel: 514 664 1036
E-mail: info@tadamon.ca
