Photo courtesy of TPFF
This is the 65th anniversary of the tragedy of the Nakba, the 20th anniversary of the Oslo Accord, the 47th day of John Greyson and Tarek Loubani’s detention by Egyptian police without charges and the 6th annual Toronto Palestine Film Festival and all of these are deeply connected.
The Toronto Palestine Film Festival began on Sept.28 at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema with the showing of the films, The Dice Player, by Nissmah Roshdy and When I Saw You by Annemarie Jacir. Roshdy’s film is an animated short featuring a poem by Mahmoud Darwish while Jacir’s film chronicles the story of a young boy ‘Tarek” and his mother in a Jordanian refugee camp after being forced to flee their village in 1967. Tarek, determined to go back to Palestine to find his father, heads out on his own and instead finds a group of ‘Fedayee’ (freedom fighters) training to go back to their homeland.
Jacir, through Skype, explained the film “was about a woman and her child who were victims of war and about a boy who rejects the idea of being a refugee and wants to go home.” She added, “The child that played Tarek, Mahmoud Asfa, was from a refugee camp in the north and a lot of the actors playing the Fedayee were the children of the actual Fedayee, so this film was about going back to that, returning to that idea.”
As well as film there are panel discussions like the one held on Sunday on The Art of Revolution with Omar Robert Hamilton of the Mosireen Collective in Cairo and Udi Aloni from the Freedom Theatre in the Jenin refugee camp and moderator Richard Fung, OCAD University film professor.
Hamilton described Mosireen as “a collective that is gathering a video archive of the eighteen days of revolution after Mubarek’s removal; to keep a record of the inspirational national memory of events.“ Hamilton said, “the collective trains, supports and provides opportunities for people’s work on revolutionary initiatives.”
Udi Aloni an artist, writer and filmmaker, spoke about revolutionary art as, “a triangle of theory, art and action. Each is a path to the other, but also a means in itself.” Freedom Theatre is a theatre in the Jenin refugee camp that trains and inspires youth to use the arts as a means of cultural resistance.
Another major theme throughout the opening weekend has been the detention of John Greyson and Tarek Loubani.Greyson is a filmaker and was an influential influence on the creation and promotion of the Toronto Palestine Film Festival. He is a member of the TPFF Advisory Board.
Through information released by their family and friends we know that while traveling to Gaza they were caught in the up in demonstrations in Cairo. While Dr. Loubani attended to injured and dying protestors, Greyson filmed the events.
Later at a checkpoint they were detained and have been held for 45 days. At the panel discussion it was announced that they will be held an additional 45 days and that charges will be laid.
The arrests, especially of Greyson, weighs heavy on all of the Toronto Palestine Film Festival organizers, guests and attendees and adds another heavy layer to the theme of Palestinian loss.
The festival runs until Friday Oct. 4 , the “With Love from Palestine” art show runs concurrently to the festival and opens on Sept. 30 in Jackman Hall at the Art Gallery of Ontario and there is an “Art Creates Change“ lecture by Emily Jasir (Annemarie‘s sister) on Thursday, Oct. 3.
