Palestine Cinema Days — Silent Flowers, Witnesses + Those Who Don't Exist + Sleep

SILENT FLOWERS, WITNESSES

directed by Theo Panagopoulos (2024, UK, 17 min.)

When a Palestinian filmmaker living in Scotland discovers a rarely shown Scottish film archive documenting Palestinian wildflowers, he decides to recover the footage. This affectionate film essay raises questions about the role of the image as a tool of both testimony and violence, revealing the complex relationships between people and the earth.

THOSE WHO DO NOT EXIST

directed by Mustafa Abu Ali (1974, Palestine, 25 min.)

Polish premiere

A landmark documentary of Palestinian revolutionary cinema, filmed in Lebanese refugee camps in the late 1960s. Responding to Golda Meir's words that Palestinians “don't exist,” the film combines images of everyday life in the camps, Israeli bombing and militant training with poetic commentary and experimental editing. Abu Ali shows the Palestinian experience of exile and resistance, while inscribing it in the broader history of the struggle against colonialism and imperialism. Survived from the ruins of Beirut after 1982 - after the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the film became one of the foundations of Palestinian cinema - almost inaccessible for years, in 2003 it saw a symbolic screening in the director's native Jerusalem.

DREAM

directed by Mohammad Malas (1987, Syria, 45 min.)

A poignant and poetic portrait of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanese camps in the early 1980s, Malas asks more than 400 people — children, women, the elderly and militants — to tell their dreams, revealing an inner world shaped by exile, memory, war and longing for Palestine. Filmed in the camps of Sabra, Shatila, Burj al-Barajin and Ain al-Hilwa, the film depicts a community suspended between past and present, just before the tragic events of 1982 — the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when Israeli troops entered southern Lebanon, reaching as far as Beirut. Combining intimate testimonies with a personal journal of the creative process, “The Dream” transforms hundreds of voices into a moving reflection on exile, loss, and the indomitable power of dreams.