São Paulo – Documentary film A Palestina Brasileira (The Brazilian Palestine), written and directed by Omar Luiz de Barros Filho of Brazil (pictured above in Jerusalem), had its São Paulo premiere in 2018 during the 13th Arab World Film Festival, hosted by the Institute of Arab Culture’s (ICArabe). Now, it has been shortlisted for the online version of Portugal’s International Heritage Film Festival (Heritales). Viewers can vote on the movie on the event’s website.
The production was picked by the jury from out of some 800 animations and short, medium and feature films. Heritales will span three months and feature 41 films, all of which are already available for viewing and voting. The festival’s award ceremony will be held in Lisbon towards the end of September.
The 4th Heritales fest is themed “Education, Diversity and Community.” The most viewed films on the Heritales website will move into further stages. The festival relies on support from the UNESCO Chair for Education, Citizenship and Cultural Diversity at Lisbon’s Universidade Lusófona.
“Heritales selects films that deal with issues relating to education, cultural roots and sustainable alternatives for the lives of communities. These are core themes of A Palestina Brasileira,” Omar told ANBA.
Shot in southern Brazil and the West Bank, the documentary film A Palestina Brasileira unearths the roots of families that settled in Brazil following the occupation of Palestine by Israel, starting in 1948. It revisits lost places and stories left behind, through shared memories, letters, photographs and recollections that rekindle the past and what’s left of it in the present.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
