Blue Box (2021)
Saturday, October 22, 2022 at 3:00 pm. The filmmaker’s great-grandfather, Joseph (Yosef) Weitz, emigrated to Palestine from Eastern Europe as an 18-year-old laborer in 1908. In the 1930s, he became director of the non-profit Jewish National Fund (JNF), whose international blue box donation campaign raised money to buy Jewish land and, through its forestation program, served as an inspirational Zionist campaign, fulfilling the Biblical promise of trees blooming in the desert.
Michal interviewed members of her extended family about their pride in the man known as “the Father of Israel’s forests,” but when she grew older, she discovered that Grandpa Joseph had another darker nickname: “The Architect of Transfer” or what we would now call ethnic cleansing […]
Screened with “We Never Left, Palestine”
Read more about "Blue Box (2021)"Huda’s Salon (2021)
Sunday, October 23, 2022 at 3:00 pm. Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad, whose films Paradise Now and Omar were both nominated for Oscars, continues to deliver hard-hitting stories from the moral frontline. In Huda’s Salon, that line is located in “Bethlehem, West Bank, Occupied Palestine.” In a thriller of political and emotional twists and turns, Abu-Assad reveals a society poisoned by the betrayal and intrigue that comes with occupation […]
Screened with “We Never Left, Palestine”.
Read more about "Huda’s Salon (2021)"The Journey of the Others (2019)
Saturday, October 29, 2022 at 3:00 pm. “We resist through art,” is the theme of Palestinian survival in the Jenin refugee camp, West Bank.
Twelve-year-old Wadee Manasara resists through his painting. “Every time the [Israeli] army enters the camp, I go to my room and start painting,” he says at the beginning of this film.
Another form of resistance is theater, a “safe space.” This movie is the story of actors and support crew from The Freedom Theatre in Jenin preparing for a trip to New York City to perform The Siege, a play about the Israeli Defense Forces occupation of Bethlehem in 2002 […]
This film will be screened with “Siri Miri” and with “We Never Left, Palestine”
Read more about "The Journey of the Others (2019)"Boycott (2021)
Sunday, October 30, 2022 at 3:00 pm. and Wednesday, November 2, 2022 at 6:00 pm. Over the past six years, unbeknownst to most Americans, 33 states passed laws intending to silence boycott and other nonviolent measures aimed at pressuring Israel on its human rights record. These dangerous bills remove the legal protection that has been awarded to boycotts for generations, granting governments the power to condition jobs on political viewpoints […]
This film will be screened with “We Never Left, Palestine”.
Read more about "Boycott (2021)"Siri Miri (2021)
Saturday, October 29, 2022 at 3:00 pm. Two young men, struggling to find something to do for entertainment, ask iPhone’s Siri for suggestions […]
Screened with “The Journey of the Others” and “We Never Left, Palestine”
Read more about "Siri Miri (2021)"We Never Left, Palestine (2022)
October 22, 23, 29, and 30, 2022 at 3:00 pm. Susan Albulhawa’s beautiful poem, “We Never Left, Palestine”, is set to music in this short movie. She eloquently expresses the story of the Palestinian people of the land and keepers of the story […]
Screened with each main feature of the 2022 festival.
Read more about "We Never Left, Palestine (2022)"WPFF Featured in Art/Work Series
Witness Palestine Film Festival was part of the video series Art/Work, “These are the people who make art come alive in Rochester.” It was released in March 2022 by journalists / videographers at City, a ca. 50-year-old local newspaper, and also screened on local public television […]
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Our 2022 Season poster is available here.
Read more about "2022 Season Poster"