The 2013 London Palestine Film Festival showed 38 works by Palestianian and international artists over a two week period at the Barbican and UCL.
I managed to get along to the following:
Blood of the Condor - billed as 'beyond Palestine' this is from the 1960's Bolivia and is filmed on crackly old 16mm. Seen as one of the classic's of '60's anticolonial cinema and a call for anticolnial revolution it tells the story of a young man trying to obtain a blood transfusion for his brother who was injured by government forces. During this search he uncovers a covert U.S. Peace Corps programme aimed at sterilising the indigenous poor.
The Last Friday - Set in Ammam, Jordan Youssef, a divorced taxi-driver, settles into a downbeat life until he is diagnosed in need of costly surgery. He is then compelled to take some decisions about his relationship with his ex-wife and son. A sombre but always enjoyable film.
The Stones Cry Out + Resistance Recipes - 'Stones' is a moving film about the centrality of Christians in Palestine throughout history. Covering the period from 1948 to the present day it explores the specific challenges they face today. It is often said that the Israeli/Palestinian problem is one of Jew against Muslim, funnily enough this film's central message, even though it is about Christians, is to refute that stance, it is a political problem about right and wrong.
Resistance Recipes as a documentary short about various culinary and agricultural projects inspired by the resistance. An account of a man and his family eco-farming their land with the most magnificient views but with the Israeli settlement land-grabs always in mind and view and another about a women's food cooperative were inspiring and engrossing at the same time.
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