{"id":393577,"date":"2025-08-14T13:57:50","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T16:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=393577"},"modified":"2025-08-14T13:57:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T16:57:52","slug":"arab-world-film-fest-opens-with-film-on-palestine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/arab-world-film-fest-opens-with-film-on-palestine\/","title":{"rendered":"Arab World Film Fest opens with film on Palestine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 When young Palestinian Noor hides from gunfire in a car during a protest against Israel, the vehicle\u2019s windshield is hit and shattered. From this moment, Palestinian American filmmaker Cherien Dabis, director of All That\u2019s Left of You<\/em>, explores what led up to this point in the teenager\u2019s story, portraying a family history of pain and loss shaped by foreign occupation and spanning generations of Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Icarabe
Icarabe president filming video during festival\u2019s opening session<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It was with this film and its theme\u2014covering both present-day Palestine and Palestine in the 1940s, when the state of Israel was first established, displacing Palestinians from their lands, and the decades since\u2014that the Arab World Film Festival opened on Wednesday night (13) at CineSesc in S\u00e3o Paulo, with a full house. Now celebrating 20 years, the festival reaches its 20th<\/sup> edition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing able to open today\u2019s screening\u2014and this edition, which runs until September\u2014with a Palestinian film is not just a source of pride for us but our form of resistance, our moral obligation, and our way of surviving in the face of memory erasure, dispossession, and the dehumanization of the other,\u201d said Nat\u00e1lia Calfat, president of the Institute for Arab Culture (Icarabe), which organizes the festival together with the Social Service of Commerce (Sesc) and state-run lender Banco do Brasil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After opening with the lively, talkative teenager Noor alongside his friend, and closing the initial shots with gunfire, All That\u2019s Left of You<\/em> moves into the young man\u2019s family past, reaching back to his grandfather Sharif in the 1940s\u2014a family man resisting leaving the city of Jaffa to the Zionists, stubbornly holding onto his fruit-exporting orange grove, but ultimately forced to surrender, first to imprisonment and then to life in a refuge.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Curator
Curator Arthur Jafet at the podium: Filming is intervening in history<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Salim, one of Sharif\u2019s sons, becomes Noor\u2019s father. In a daily struggle to survive under Israeli control, surrounded by soldiers, Salim teaches and tries to provide basic comfort and security for his small family. The memory of grandfather Sharif begins to fade, but he still instills in his grandson the desire to see a free and self-determined Palestine. Together, grandson and grandfather sing and play, numbing the pain of a life on hold and dreams cut short by the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arab World Film Festival promises to be a journey through the realities of the Arab world. One of the films, Sudan, Remember Us<\/em>, by director Hind Meddeb, is a documentary-poem capturing Sudanese youth between revolution and exile, just before the civil war. Who Do I Belong To<\/em>, by Meryam Joobeur, depicts A\u00efcha\u2019s drama when her son returns from Syria with his pregnant mute wife. The festival will feature 12 premieres and five repeat screenings, with programming at CineSesc until August 19 and at the Banco do Brasil Cultural Center (CCBB) in S\u00e3o Paulo from August 16 to September 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The festival\u2019s curator, Arthur Jafet, a member of the Board of the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce<\/strong> (ABCC<\/a>), introduced the films to the audience and spoke about cinema\u2019s role. \u201cArab cinema, from names like Youssef Chahine in Egypt, Jocelyne Saab in Lebanon, and Michel Khleifi in Palestine, has shown that filming is not just recording\u2014it is intervening in history, preserving what disappears, and reimagining the future,\u201d Jafet said. He also reflected on the festival\u2019s 20-year history: \u201cOver these 20 years, the festival has created a space for listening and projection, both literally and symbolically, for cinemas that challenge erasure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turning 20<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Soraya Smaili, one of Icarabe\u2019s founders and the creator of the Arab World Film Festival, also spoke about reaching its 20th<\/sup> edition. According to her, it took years of hard work. \u201cIt was a learning process\u2014we had to learn how to bring the films, how to translate them, how to negotiate them, and fortunately we inspired other festivals,\u201d she said, highlighting the various partnerships built to make the festival possible.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Dib
Dib spoke on behalf of the Arab-Brazilian Chamber: The institution sponsors the festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

One of these partnerships was with the ABCC, whose president, William Adib Dib Jr., spoke at the opening. The ABCC sponsors this edition through its Arab House. \u201cOver two decades, the festival has become established in S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s cultural calendar and enjoys great prestige, even amid the many alternatives the city offers,\u201d Dib said. He added that the festival helps give visibility to the multiple expressions of the Arab world in its social, political, and cultural diversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spanish filmmaker Isabel Fern\u00e1ndez was also present and spoke at the opening. Her film The Builders of Alhambra<\/em> is part of the 20th<\/sup> edition\u2019s program. She described it as \u201cfortunate\u201d that the film is being shown for the first time in Brazil alongside productions addressing Mediterranean themes or directed by Arab filmmakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also speaking at the opening were \u00c9rika Mour\u00e3o Trindade Dutra, Cultural Action Manager at Sesc, who said that festivals like this aim to highlight the contributions of different cultures in Brazil, and Claudio Mattos Brito Filho, General Manager of CCBB, who spoke about cinema\u2019s power to cross borders, bring cultures closer, and build bridges between realities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the audience were former ABCC presidents Rubens Hannun and Osmar Chohfi, current Administrative Vice President Nahid Chicani, Treasurer Mohamad Abdouni Neto, and Board member Louren\u00e7o Chohfi Neto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See the full program on the festival’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more:
<\/em>Arab World Film Festival reaches its 20th edition<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Supplied<\/div>
Icarabe<\/div>
Isaura Daniel\/ANBA<\/div>
Ana Rogers\/Icarabe<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pause of life and the burial of dreams that span generations in Palestine, due to the conflict with Israel, are the underlying theme of the film All That\u2019s Left of You, which kicked off the 20th edition of the Arab World Film Festival on Wednesday (13) at CineSesc in S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1455,"featured_media":393565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46537,89],"tags":[48478,9534,4639,11821,54029,28406,9535,34388,1825,13685,5051,9897,29862],"class_list":{"0":"post-393577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arab-brazilian-chamber","8":"category-culture","9":"tag-arab-brazilian-chamber-of-commerce-2","10":"tag-brazil-en","11":"tag-camara-arabe-en","12":"tag-ccbb-en","13":"tag-cherien-dabis-2","14":"tag-cinema-en-2","15":"tag-cinema-en","16":"tag-cinesesc-en-2","17":"tag-culture","18":"tag-film-festival","19":"tag-films","20":"tag-palestine-en","21":"tag-sao-paulo-en-2"},"wps_subtitle":"The pause of life and the burial of dreams that span generations in Palestine, due to the conflict with Israel, are the underlying theme of the film All That\u2019s Left of You, which kicked off the 20th edition of the Arab World Film Festival on Wednesday (13) at CineSesc in S\u00e3o Paulo.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1455"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}