2nd MADRID PALESTINIAN FILM SHOW 2011

The second Madrid Palestinian Film Show is being held from 25 November to 4 December 2011. Film festival devoted exclusively to Palestinian films held in Madrid and organised by the association Handala min Palestina. This year, the second event includes 38 films divided into two sections: Palestinian cinema, with 27 Palestinian films: 5 fiction and 22 documentaries; and Cinema about Palestine, with 11 documentary films.

>Saturday 26 / Cineteca

6.30pm This is my picture when I was dead  (Mahmoud al Massad / 83´/ 2010 / Netherlands-Jordan). Arabic O.V. with subtitles in Spanish.
Athens, 1983. The world’s press gives the news of the death of Bashir, a four-year-old Palestinian boy who died in the murder of his father, Mamoun Meraish, a PLO leader. But what if death was not the end of the journey? Investigating what his life would have been like, the film goes back to what his father was. Like his father, he would be a politician. However, and despite expressing himself with arms, he uses what he had always loved as a child: drawing. This child would have become the best political draughtsman in Jordan.

8.30pm Masterclass by Mahmoud al Massad

9.45pm My name is Ahlam (Rima Essa / 80´ / 2010 / Palestine). Arabic O.V. with subtitles in Spanish.
The incredible story of a Palestinian woman fighting the leukaemia of her five-year-old daughter Ahlam, her husband, the occupiers and anyone who got in the way of curing her daughter.

> Sunday 26 / Cineteca

6.30pm The Catastrophe Part I(Rawan el Damen / 100´/ 2008 / Qatar). Arabic, Hebrew and English O.V. with subtitles in Spanish.
With unique archive material and testimony from Israeli, Palestinian and British historians, it tells an extraordinary story, that of the Palestinian catastrophe (Al Nakba), which even today shapes the affairs of the Middle East. The first part covers the period between 1799 and 1947. The second part goes into depth on the events of 1948, ethnic cleansing and the expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians who became refugees coming to number 5 million throughout the world.
6.30pm Sala Azcona

8.30pm Masterclass by Rawan el Damen

9.45pm The Catastrophe Part II(Rawan el Damen / 100´/ 2008 / Qatar). Arabic, Hebrew and English O.V. with subtitles in Spanish.


> Tuesday 29 / Intermediae

5.30pm Bilin, my love (Shai Carmeli Pollack / 2006 / Israel / 84'). Arabic, Hebrew and English O.V. with subtitles in Spanish.
Under the pretext of security, Israel confiscates the lands of a Palestinian village, Bilin, for the construction of the Wall, but the community resists every day. This is the story of a people who do not want to lose their lands and who confront the Israeli army in a non-violent way.

Colloquium on non-violent resistance movements.
7.30pm Budrus (Julia Bacha /2009 / 70' / Israel) Arabic, Hebrew and English O.V. with subtitles in Spanish.
Film following a Palestinian leader who tries to bring together Fatah, Hamas and the Israelis in a non-violent movement to save his village from destruction. He will not achieve it until his 15-year-old daughter joins the struggle.


> Wednesday 30 / Cineteca

6.30pm Blanche’s Homeland (Maryse Gargour / 28´/ 2002 / France-Palestine). Arabic, French and English O.V. with subtitles in Spanish.
This intimist, evocative and poetic film follows the steps of an old woman between 1988 and 2001. Blanche was born in Jaffa, where her parents were landowners, but she begins her exile in the 1948 war. Her life becomes a series of exiles, from Jaffa to Beirut, Europe and the United States. Reflecting the history she has lived through, Blanche rebels against the world’s amnesia about the destiny of the Palestinian population and, through dialogues between her and the new generations of exiled Palestinians, provides testimony of the tenacity and permanence of their identity.

8.30pm Masterclass by Maryse Gargour

9.45pm Frontiers of Dreams and Fears (Mai Masri / 56´ / 2001 / Palestine). Arabic O.V. with subtitles in Spanish.
From the Shatila camp in Lebanon to the Dheisha camp in West Bank, friendship blossoms between two refugee girls. This is their story from exile, forced to live separately from one another and away from their native land.