Discoveries from Palestinian Territories World Cinema

The voice of a new generation rocks and rhymes as Palestinian rappers form alternative voices of resistance within the Israeli-Palestinian struggle.

Through funny, serious or unusual portraits of Ramallah inhabitants, Flavie Pinatel attempts, with this film, to get this city out of its tragedy and reveal it as a beating heart, a 21st century city.

A film by The Palestinian Cultural Club. In Beddawi refugee camp, a young Palestinian weighs escape via “death boats” as loss, love, and community tensions push him toward a fateful choice.

A year into the genocide in Gaza, survivors of the destruction of al-Shifa Hospital recount the tragedy.

An intimate story of a three-generational Palestinian Bedouin family and their animals on the outskirts of Amman, Jordan, as relentless development reshapes their world. Facing eviction, displacement and an uncertain future, they struggle to survive in an environment that is becoming increasingly uninhabitable and unrecognizable.

In a land shelled, starved, and denied all essentials, Gazan women fight for health, dignity, and the barest human needs.

Follows Palestinian women from different generations and villages in the occupied territories.

Team Gaza records the lives of four young football players daring to dream in Gaza, a land strip sealed off from the outside world.

War shatters a child's world. With his fish as his only companion, he journeys to the unknown, seeking solace by the sea.

Dig through photojournalist Mahfouz Abu Turk’s memories and archives, where he thoroughly documented his experiences in Jerusalem and the West Bank from the First Intifada in 1987 throughout the next decade.

Those were the days when girls were prettier, when eyes were in all colours, without any colour. What's Different now - the camera, or the eyes?" asks Abdel Salam Shehadah's poetic and mesmerizing homage to the studio photographers of the 1950's - 70's. Set partly in a refugee camp in Rafah, this is a remarkable look back at fifty years of Palestinian and Arab history, through photographs, reportage and the voices of these photographers today.

Produced in 2004 by Al-Haq and directed by Hannah Musleh as part of Al-Haq's campaign to stop collective punishment practiced by Israeli occupying forces against Palestinian civilians. In the Spider's Web provides an overview of these punitive measures against the Palestinian civilians. While the film mainly addresses the accounts of two women, it also highlights the impact that collective punishment has on the whole civilian population. The film also takes the audience to a girls; school in Hebron, where it shows a typical day in the lives of these students. The documentary also seeks to capture and relay some of the disastrous implications of the continuing construction of the Annexation Wall and the further expropriation of land for its construction.

Muddy Currents goes back to the literal source of Israeli domination in the settlements in Palestine. Starting with the capture of water, artist Shadi Habib Allah explores how a people is deprived of its natural and basic resources, formally asking the question: how do we represent the lack of what is necessary?

Stitched from the artist's own clothes, a fragile tent becomes a haunting memorial for Gaza, and a powerful symbol for people who are still living in tents over the rubble of their destroyed homes.

A cinematic diary from the West Bank and the Golan Heights – places caught between occupation, oppression, and a lived, collective experience.

Two young women from Gaza grow-up dreaming of a society in which their hopes and aspirations can find ground to grow. But they hit against a hard reality, crueler than they had ever imagined and end up feeling ‘outside the frame'.

Using layered, painterly animation and abstracted imagery of military vehicles, the film reflects on the relentless machinery of war and genocide and its dehumanizing force. Based on paintings by Gaza-based Palestinian artist Mohammed Joha.

This is the first installment of the "Voices from Gaza" documentary project, which aims to deliver to the world the current state of the Gaza Strip in Palestine in 2025, a state that cannot be fully conveyed through fragmented news footage or social media videos, at a speed faster than a typical film release. Ahmad Al-Gharban, a 16-year-old boy from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, survived an Israeli attack on March 22, 2025, but lost both legs and his fingers. His twin brother, Muhammad, his uncle, and a 6-year-old cousin were also killed. Ahmad began studying circus music at age 7 with his deceased brother, and dreamed of becoming a performer. Ahmad and his family currently live in a refugee camp where drones fly overhead 24/7. The camp is located on the site of the former Islamic University of Gaza.

Left Hook: Women Boxers of Gaza is a documentary that tells the story of the first women's boxing team in Gaza.

A portrait of the greatly beloved performer Alaa Meqdad. The bombings of Gaza City—where he once lived with his parents, sisters, wife, and children—have forced him and his family into a tent camp. With extraordinary optimism, he embraces life in the here and now, and tries to make it more enjoyable for others. Together with his partner, he performs as Aloosh the clown for children in hospitals and on the streets. Their jokes, songs, and boundless energy make the horrific reality momentarily disappear.

Behind you lies the sea; before you stands the enemy. This is the reality for the people of Gaza—and for Palestinian journalist Sami, who records it all with his 360° camera in the VR documentary Under the Same Sky. Driving along the Mediterranean coast in a press vehicle, he documents the war in the Gaza Strip. On one side are peaceful waters; on the other, heart-wrenching ruins.

Aisha, a Palestinian girl, lives in Hebron. With her camera, she documents her family's resistance in a city where oppression is a central part of everyday life.

A Jerusalem couple set off on a journey. Against a backdrop of beauty, belief and great violence, they begin a film of their lives.

This one-hour journalistic exploration by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Shelley Saywell takes the viewer beyond the headlines and into the daunting, determined minds and hearts of Hamas, a movement formed in 1987 with one declared aim – to destroy the hard-won New State of Israel through Jihad: through applied resistance to Israel’s occupation of what Palestinians perceived – and perceive – as their ancestral land.

I cycled over 300km alone through the occupied West Bank. This journey took me through Israeli checkpoints, military zones, and illegal Israeli settlements, as I explored what life is like under occupation for millions of Palestinians.

A documentary about Palestinian women in the West Bank who partner with an "Israeli" human rights organization and use cameras to capture human rights violations by settlers and the military, as well as the nuances of their own lives. Through interviews and using the shocking footage they have filmed, the film introduces these non-violent activists, humanizes them and sheds light on the complicated situations that have become daily life for Palestinian citizens living in the occupied territories. It shatters the media stereotypes we have come to accept.

White Oil is a film about the quarries in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The film unfolds narratives around colonialism, expropriation of land and mobility through the day-to-day lives of the quarry owners, workers and security guards by including their personal histories and experiences, as well as, the changing landscape and conditions of the quarries to bring to bear the myriad losses of land, economy, identity, history and community.

This documentary short film brings the viewer close to the conditions isolating Palestinians within their communities. It is filmed next to the separation barrier that Israel continues to build in the occupied Palestinian territories. Terry Boulatta, mother, teacher and community activist, shows how the 27 foot high wall surrounds her neighborhood in East Jerusalem, dividing it from the adjacent community of Abu Dis, severing the historical bonds of the two communities.

In Gaza, Hassan breaks the siege and risks everything to save his starving family, paying the price of losing his way home.

A production for the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

An experimental essay on the technological evolution of the violence and control exercised by Israel over Gaza and the Palestinian people. In three movements, this first-person narrative combines personal and historical archives.

In a Palestinian village, the lives of three children intertwine around a pink swing, but their friendship, affection and dreams are put to the test when the Israeli occupation army arrives, bringing with it a harsh reality they must confront together.

Contrasting the Palestinian Diaspora experience with that of footage shot on location in Jenin Refugee Camp, poet and singer Mustafa's original song accompanies a short film about the common pain of a People.

Top collection of the songs of Salam Abu Amneh and her sister Dalal Abu Amneh.

Opening with the harrowing 2000 press footage of Palestinian boy Mohamad al-Durra’s death in his father’s arms, Eliane Raheb’s film becomes both witness and participant. Her camera travels through Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, tracing the lives of countless “young Mohamads” - children forced to grow up too soon in a world shaped by the intifada. As the journey unfolds, the filmmaker’s quest becomes deeply personal, prompting her to reflect on her place within the Arab world and to question her relationship with Palestine.

In 1982, the war had spread to the Palestinian-Lebanese border, and the Israeli colonizers entered the Rashidiya camp in southern Lebanon. There, a number of young children were waiting for them. They were cubs of the Palestinian revolution, carrying RPG weapons and fighting the Zionist enemy. In this film, the director follows these children nearly 40 years after that anniversary.

When Palestinian father Abou Yousef leaves for Gaza after a decade of living in Norway, his daughter Mai begins to confront the emotional distance shaped by his 20 years of imprisonment in Israel.

Words of the poet Mahmoud Darwish float through this film: “Tell me. Perhaps I will remember my home whose perfume is only on my lips.” A 17-year-old Palestinian introduces herself: Aida, the returning one. When her father was killed in battle, her mother was already dead, killed by a bomb. When she was eight, she was sent to a PLO orphanage in Beirut, then to an orphanage in Damascus, then to an orphanage in Tunis. Here she takes care of new orphans. The portrait of a girl expands: countless children who will forget their homeland and origin. There is nothing but war left in their drawings. The PLO had assigned its collaborator Marwan Salamah to study cinematography at Babelsberg. Here, he is also the director. In 1985, “Aida” won the Prize of the World Federation of Democratic Youth in Leipzig.

This video documents the project Duncan Campbell created during his Dar Jacir residency, in which he worked with Samer Albarbari to restore and repaint a 1987 Peugeot 405 car.

Piecing together the powerful testimonies of Bedouin women fighting to preserve their culture and history, we move between fragmented representations of their homes as the protagonists narrate their stories giving voice and texture to absence, taking up space, refusing to be erased.

Created around a taped interview with the artist Samia Halaby, director Al-Beik includes Halaby's own footage of a trip to the West Bank, in which she narrates her stay there and later documents a trip to her grandmother's apartment in Jerusalem. This is interwoven with Al Beik's own sequences exploring the modern Palestinian condition.

What is behind Israel's war on Gaza? Why do so many Palestinians support armed struggle? Why are Israel and Hezbollah on the brink of full-scale war? In this hard-hitting debut documentary, Lebanese-Australian lawyer Nicholas Hanna explores these questions and crucial context largely ignored by mainstream media. Filmed in Lebanon and Occupied Palestine, The Last Sky is a must see documentary for anyone interested in understanding the current Gaza war and the escalating conflict in the region.

Gaza 36mm is the interpretation of a reality that excels the game of death more than the game of life. It is a small window through which Gaza had the chance to see the outside space, a special cinematographic code that reflects the state of destruction and damage of the cinemas due to ideological and social reasons. It is about a dump that was once a cinema house that attracts visitors.

Bath Time by Sharif Waked is a short video based on the tragi-comic outcome of the Israeli Blockade and the wars in Gaza. The story tells about how, after a war and the ongoing economic pressure, the Gaza Zoo lost several of their animals, and decided that they could paint a donkey so that it could pose as a zebra.

A freedom fighter's journey from armed resistance to cultural resistance.

A personal journey into the memory of Palestinian refugees. Sobhi al-Zobaidi's first personal film, produced on the even of the 50th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba.

In this film Rana Abushkaidem and Mira Jibreen take us on a diary journey in present time Palestine. The filmmakers saw present Palestine in the archives and connected the images of Deir Hanna (1948 occupied Palestine) with a voiceover from the present about Wadi Foukin in the West bank (1967 occupied Palestine). They pay tribute to Raja Khateeb, a farmer and public political figure who appears in the footage. - Mahasen Nasser-Eldin for BlackStar

The exodus of Palestinian refugees in Jordan after the Six Day War and King Hussein's intervention at the United Nations assembly.

First film by artist and filmmaker Emily Jacir.

Three families of Palestinian Refugees living in gatherings- Tyre, South of Lebanon and a human rights activist make you discover the difficult life conditions of Palestinian Refugees, their daily life, their aspiration to communicate with their relatives in Germany and their continuous waiting.

In the shadow of the disengagement from Gaza, west from Ramallah, a new city is under construction, Kiriyat Sefer. In the early hours of the morning, some construction workers from a neighboring Palestinian village, Bilin, walk towards another day of work. Unemployed since the early days of the Second Intifada and drowned into financial debts, Maher Hatib, is forced to work, against his own conscience, in the new settlement that is being built on the village's lands. In a day's work, with scarce time for rest, the words tossed into the air and space open a window to the sentiments of the workers for the land they once cherished. The struggle of the workers remains silent given the paradox of their situation. Their employment supplies the occupation forces that allow the construction of the separation fence and the continuation of the future expansion plans.

Four kids from the refugee camp in Bethlehem decide to visit the sea for the first time in their life.

A Short documentary film which docoment some of women stories during the war 2014 implemented by Culture and Free Thought Association " CFTA" in partnership with UNFPA and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denemark

The Palestine Broadcasting Service was created in 1936 by the British mandate to rally the Arab populations to colonial policy. Through its Arabic-speaking section 'Radio Al Quds', it covered the Palestinian revolt, gave voice to Palestinian nationalists while broadcasting rich programs. It quickly saw the establishment of censorship and repression by the mandatory authority, until its sacking in 1948.

Inspired by such tales, I Feel Nothing is a metaphorical video-poem, where a relationship is recounted, though remains ambiguous if it is between a man and a woman, the past and the present, or an individual and a homeland.

Abed, a young Palestinian, enters Israel illegally by passing under the Wall, through the sewers. He works in a restaurant in the West of Jerusalem. On his day off, Abed decides to go home with a mysterious white box. It is the beginning of a long journey.

Following the operation against the Israeli sports delegation participating in the Munich Olympics in Germany in 1972, the Zionist entity launched retaliatory raids against the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon (specifically the village of Da'al in Syria and the Nabatieh camp in Lebanon) on September 8th, 1972. In reflecting the sheer barbarism of the Zionist aggression, legendary Palestinian filmmaker Mustafa Abu Ali is compelled to reach for new filmic grammar to reflect on the brutality. This is a film haunted and haunting, with unfiltered images of death. Lifeless babies, features bloated. Children in hospital beds, limbs twisted, faces bruised. Agony. Skulls shattered. Hands crushed. Occasionally, lifeless eyes blink, a twitch of the hand brings something akin to hope – that life persists, life could persist.

Three boys are growing up in Israel and the Palestinian territories, right next to each other, in completely different worlds. We follow them over the course of a year, through adolescence. We watch as they experience life in promiscuous Tel Aviv, in the religious ideology of a Jewish settlement and in the occupied city of Hebron, where Israeli soldiers are in control. One year of trials and tribulations of three sixteen year old boys. They try to fulfill their teenage dreams in an environment of violence and sometimes war.