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2024


Saturday 21 September
DIY as Resistance:
Short film programme & workshop
Cafe Oto


Begins 12pm
Please arrive promptly to share coffee and dates as part of a mourning ceremony.
Ends 3.30pm  


Short film programme Barzakh برزخ curated by Saeed Taji Farouky سعيد تاجي الفاروقي

Making and screening these films is a political act. Watching them together is an act of resistance.

Workshop with Olivia Melkonian Օլիվիա Մելքոնեան & Sherif Dhaimish الشريف دهيميش

An interactive workshop designed to empower participants to harness the power of art as a form of resistance.


Film Programme: Barzakh برزخ


Cinema is an illusion, dedicated to fooling you into thinking the stuttering images on screen are, in fact, continuous. Film is still images and motion at the same time. It is, therefore, the ideal art form to reflect the Palestinian condition – somehow stuck and rapidly changing at the same time; utterly fragmented, shattered, yet simultaneously invincible. Barzakh برزخ, too, is a duality: both dead and alive. The barrier between one life and the next, as well as the path to resurrection. These films face the fragmentation of Palestine head on and refuse to be broken by it. They digest it, assimilate it, and by turning it into art, assert the continuity of the Palestinian identity, despite Zionism's best efforts to destroy it. By repudiating barriers, making and screening these films is a political act. Watching them together is an act of resistance. Sharing coffee and dates together is an act of mourning. We cry for our dead, remember our past, and together imagine our future.
–STF


They Do Not Exist (Mustafa Abu Ali, 1974, 26’)

A poetic evisceration of European colonialism through images of survival and revival in the refugee camps of southern Lebanon. Rescued from the wreckage of Beirut in 1982, the film was smuggled into Jerusalem, then reconstituted and restored for its Palestinian premiere in 2003. Influenced by everything from Palestinian vernacular to European arthouse and Third Cinema, this film went on to define a new era of insurgent filmmaking. This version of They Do Not Exist was made by No Name Cinema, which commissioned an audio engineer to clean up the soundtrack and worked with a grader to do colour correction.

A World Apart Within 15 Minutes (Enas I. Muthaffar, 2006, 3’)

The geography of apartheid is one of the most insidious weapons in Israel’s colonisation of Palestine. Enas I. Muthaffar’s deceptively playful film is a road movie for the lost, exploring the physical walls that separate Jerusalem from its neighbour Ramallah, and the psychological walls that blind West Jerusalemites to the Palestinian reality around them. An unanswered question tells us more than the correct answer ever could.
Produced by The Palestinian Filmmakers' Collective & Akka Film
Camera/director: Enas I. Muthaffar
Starring/editor: Annemarie Jacir

Deep Sleep (Basma Alsharif, 2014, 13’)

Denied travel to her home in Gaza, Basma Alsharif trained in self-hypnosis and filmed this kaleidoscopic astral journey, a dreamscape that transcends space and time. Alsharif refuses the tyrannies of geographical borders and of conventional film narrative. Neither the laws of physics nor the laws of fascists can hold her back.

Like Twenty Impossibles (Annemarie Jacir, 2003, 17’)

In this fictional behind-the-scenes footage of an aborted film shoot, a Palestinian crew is harassed and detained by Israeli soldiers. The geographic fragmentation of the occupied West Bank bleeds into the film itself, as image and sound are disassociated and the fundamental principles of narrative are torn apart.


Workshop: DIY as Resistance


Drawing from our diverse backgrounds in publishing, audio production and archiving, we’ll guide attendees through the creation of a collaborative manifesto that explores the intersections of DIY practices, artistic expression, cultural exploration and political activism. We’ll delve into topics such as resilience under pressure, alternative funding models, collective creation and the amplification of marginalised voices. Participants will be encouraged to share their own experiences and ideas, contributing to a dynamic dialogue about the role of art in challenging dominant narratives. By the end of the workshop, attendees will not only have contributed to a powerful manifesto that we aim to publish in 2025, but will also leave with practical strategies for implementing DIY approaches in their own artistic resistance efforts.
–SD & OM

Buy tickets from Cafe Oto:

Festival pass £30 advance

Film screenings & workshop £3

Buy solidarity tickets here:
Festival pass £60

Your support helps us continue to offer discounted tickets to those who need them. Thank you!

Access:

All events take place on the ground floor, with step-free access and accessible toilets.

We offer 2 for 1 tickets for guests’ carers.

We are more than happy to reserve you seats and/or space for a wheelchair.

To arrange any of the above, or if you have any questions to help make your visit more comfortable, please email us here. 

Photo: Layla Tosifi
Saeed Taji Farouky سعيد تاجي الفاروقي is a Palestinian-Egyptian-British filmmaker, writer and curator who has been making work around themes of conflict, human rights and colonialism since 2004. His 2021 documentary A Thousand Fires premiered as the opening film of Locarno's Critics' Week, where it won the Marco Zucchi Award for most innovative documentary. He teaches and lectures at venues including University College London, National Film and Television School and the Scottish Documentary Institute in the UK, and Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab. He is the designer and lead tutor of the South London Gallery’s free, radical REcreative Film School, which supports people from backgrounds underrepresented in the industry, and co-founder of Safar, the UK’s only film festival dedicated entirely to Arab cinema.