Join Writers & Books and Witness Palestine Film Festival for a pair of short film screenings at University of Rochester in support of our Rochester Reads 25th Anniversary selection, One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad.  

Join us in celebrating the opening of the 15th edition of the Witness Palestine Film Festival, with an evening of home-cooked Palestinian cuisine. This year we are honored to welcome Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mosab Abu Toha, who will provide the keynote address at our opening dinner.

Seeking to decode a final, unanswered invitation, a filmmaker explores why the renowned Lebanese director Jocelyne Saab reached out for a collaboration just two months before her passing. Since his reply can never reach her, the film transforms into a lyrical expedition through the life, political commitments, and artistic vision of a singular voice from the era of revolution.

Join us for a film event unlike any any other, in celebration of Palestine's history and culture. In the historic Dryden Theatre, witness archival images of Palestine from the Eastman Museum's moving image collections, alongside a live accompaniment performed by musicians from the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Toronto Symphony. Following by a Q&A with Kareem Roustom, Emmy-nominated composer of Palestinian Songs and Dances. 

An archival journey through the life and mind of the brilliant Palestinian-American professor, author, and public intellectual Edward Said (1935–2003). Born in Jerusalem, Said was displaced, along with his refugee family, in 1948, with the founding of Israel. Sent to boarding school in Massachusetts, he would go on to become a Professor of Literature at Columbia University, later finding his calling as a world-renowned advocate for the Palestinian cause, and in essential books like Orientalism.