Boston Palestine Film Festival 2008

The first feature film by a Palestinian woman, Salt of this Sea tells the story of Soraya, a third-generation, working-class Palestinian refugee living in Brooklyn NY. Soraya discovers that her grandfather’s savings have been frozen in a bank account in Jaffa since he was expelled in 1948. Determined to reclaim what is theirs, she fulfills her life-long dream to return to Palestine. Critic Deborah Young says Salt of this Sea "boldly grabs hold of the central issue at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict.” This film was the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival 2008. The film has also been nominated as the Palestinian Entry to the Oscars. (FIPRESCI Critics Award, Osians) Special pre-screening of Salt of this Sea at the festival Director Annemarie Jacir speaking with Palestinian-American Poet and Actress Suheir Hammad News: 'Salt' to be Palestinian Oscar entry , Sept 22, 2008. Stranger than paradise: Film Review by Rasha Salti, The National, September 4, 2008 Annemarie Jacir has been working in independent cinema as a filmmaker and writer since 1994 and has written, directed and produced a number of award-winning films. Salt of This Sea is the first feature film directed by a Palestinian woman director. She is chief curator and co-founder of the ground breaking Dreams of a Nation Palestinian cinema project. She has taught courses at Columbia University, Bethlehem University, and Birzeit University and also works as a freelance editor, cinematographer and film curator. She organized Palestine’s first major traveling film festival in 2004, screening films across the country. She is a founding member of the Palestinian Filmmakers’ Collective, based in Palestine. Jacir currently lives in Amman since being forbidden from returning to Palestine.

Detached from many of the daily horrors of the occupation, Ramallah filmmaker Ihab Jadallah finds himself compelled—by producers, collaborating artists and viewers—to present himself and his work in accordance with a “meta-script” that features violence, with good-guy and bad-guy narratives. This film is at once a parody of and a rejection of these constraints. London Palestine Film Festival 2008, Houston Palestine Film Festival 2008, Hamburg International short Film Festival 2008, Short Corner Cannes Film Festival 2008. Ihab Jadallah was born and raised in Beit Safafa, near the occupied city of Jerusalem, Palestine, in 1980. He is studying for a Bachelor of Arts in audiovisual communication at the Catalunya Cinematographic Studies Center in the Spanish city of Valencia. Ihab is currently working on his first feature-length film and hopes to begin production this Fall.