Boston Palestine Film Festival 2008

In my childhood in Palestine, walls and what was written on them were my daily newspaper. But the years have passed and the situation has changed along with our dreams. So what has happened to my walls? Palestine Audio-Visual Project of the A.M. Qattan Foundation trained Palestinian young adults to use film to convey their diverse experiences. Filmmakers in Palestine face difficulties not only in securing funding or finding qualified technicians, but also in finding a distributor for their work. In response, the A.M. Qattan Foundation created the Palestinian Audio-Visual Project (PAVP) and ran the program from 2004-2007. PAVP was co-funded by the A.M. Qattan Foundation and the European Union. The project had three areas of intervention: capacity-building through a National Training Program; a Film Education Program aimed at school students; and publication and distribution of audio-visual works with Palestinian themes. For more information: www.qattanfoundation.org.

The daily scramble of life in the town of Qalqiliya through the eyes of Palestine's one and only zookeeper, Dr. Sami Khader. Just 15 kilometers from Tel Aviv, Qalqiliya is completely fenced off from the rest of the world by Israel's security wall. Like the town itself, the Zoo has been hit hard by the conflict. Campbell accompanies the voluble and entertaining Dr. Sami on a mission to rescue two baboons from a run-down facility in Nablus. The degree of bureaucracy and checkpoint subterfuge they face turns an already bizarrely symbolic task into a flabbergasting exercise in absurdity. The Zoo is hilarious, heartbreaking, and infuriating all at once. Hayden Campbell studied Film Making at the University of Canterbury Fine Arts Film School in New Zealand. He resides in New Zealand and is working on his next documentary film project.