Boston Palestine Film Festival 2008

The Rules of Engagement for Israeli soldiers are unclear and often lethal. B'Tselem is part of the Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories has, for the past 20 years, been combining first class research, innovative advocacy and public education strategies to effect change.

A boat embarks on a besieged Beirut to evacuate foreign nationals. From under the rubble of destroyed buildings, relief workers pull the bodies of the dead. Moving between light and darkness, life and its extinction, bodies redraw the boundaries of other bodies, the smell of death cloaking all. This haunting film, transmits, without music or excessive gestures, in 10 minutes and just five shots, the anguish of death during and in the aftermath of the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon. Maher Abi Samra studied theatre at the Lebanese University, and majored in audiovisual studies at the Institut National de l'Image et du Son in Paris. He worked as a photographer for Lebanese newspapers and for Agence France Press and Reuters. He wrote and directed several documentaries, including Mariam (2006), Rond-Point Chatila (2004), Women of Hezbollah (2000), and Building on the Waves (1995).

To leave her house Malka has to climb through the rooftops. B'Tselem - the Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories- has worked since 1989 to promote human rights in the occupied territories. B'Tselem combines first class research and innovative advocacy and public education strategies to effect change.

Students of San Francisco State University attempt to have a mural depicting Palestinian culture in the Diaspora displayed on a San Francisco State University building and must navigate the resulting “controversy” to overcome opposition. Today the mural is the only one of its kind on any U.S. university campus and, more significantly, was the first on any U.S. public institution. Norma Shiheiber born in the United States to a Palestinian family who was forced out of Jaffa, Palestine in 1948. She studied journalism at SFSU. For the last 20 years she has been focused on raising children. Now she is pursuing her dream, documentary filmmaking. Her niece Jacqueline Husary is one of the main protagonists in the film, spear-heading an initiative to have a Palestinian mural displayed on campus.

A young Bedouin man and his family live in a small Israeli village that receives no services from the state. Despite being labeled a traitor, he decides to join the Israeli Army in a bid to win recognition—and ultimately be able to provide for his little sister, who has a health condition that requires constant vigilance. Ayelet Bechar is a filmmaker and journalist. She is a graduate of the Tel Aviv University Department of Film and Television and of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York. She has made two documentaries including Just Married. Just Married has already won Best Documentary Film at three international film festivals. Ayelet lives in Tel Aviv, Israel with her family.

Often only children are allowed to visit their relatives in prison. This is their story. B'Tselem is part of the Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories has, for the past 20 years, been combining first class research, innovative advocacy and public education strategies to effect change.

Survivors of Eilaboun, a small Palestinian village, speak about the 1948 massacres in their town and the expulsion of the villagers. This story of a village tells the story of a nation. Hisham Zreiq was born in 1968 in Nazareth to a Christian-Palestinian family. He started working in computer graphics in 1996 and is now living and working in Germany.

Stranger in my Home is a documentary film based on oral history. It relates the stories of eight Palestinian Jerusalemite families that have been turned into refugees in their own city. After 40 years, they recall the events that occurred in the Moghrabi Quarter of Jerusalem during the 1967 war. Each family goes to see their home which was occupied in 1948. The homes are located in the Baqa'a, Talbiyeh, Qatamon and Mosrarah neighborhoods of what is now West Jerusalem. Some of the families enter their former homes and have a discussion with the Israeli tenants currently occupying their homes. The film also includes an interview with the Israeli architect David Kroyanker who wrote books about these homes. Free Screening in Worcester

Up for a business challenge? Open the first and only micro brewery in Palestine…Throw in some land occupation, political instability, random checkpoints, economic strife, religious fundamentalists and the occasional rocket attack. Welcome to Palestine's Taybeh Brewing Company! Buthina Canaan Khoury , born in Ramallah in 1966, is a Palestinian independent filmmaker who established Majd Production Company in Ramallah city in 2000. The company's main objective is to produce documentaries about women's social and political problems. Khoury received her Bachelors degree in Filmmaking and Photography from the Massachusetts College of Fine Arts in Boston, in 1988. She is the first Palestinian woman to work as cameraperson, producer and coordinator covering special events in the Middle East for the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and several well known European TV channels in Palestine. She has also worked as assistant director, documentary researcher and cameraperson in the films The Woman Next Door, A Woman of Her Times: A Portrait of Hanan Ashrawi, and Youth of Both Sides. Women in Struggle (2004), co-produced with Lichtpunt in Belgium and Medea Fund, is Khoury's first documentary as producer and director. Screened worldwide, the documentary was awarded two prizes at the Allsmalia Film Festival and one at Amwa in Virginia, USA. Her new project, Taste the Revolution is a documentary about her family and their business.