Day 2-Synopsis

Chronicles of a Refugee: Part IV: Identity Without Homeland

Unpacks the meaning and attributes of Palestinian identity in different parts of the world after 60 years of dispossession and refugee status

Unpacks the meaning and attributes of Palestinian identity in different parts of the world after 60 years of dispossession and refugee status. Palestinians debate the role of refugee camps, usefulness of citizenship and the effect of living outside the Arab world on Palestinian identity.
Language Arabic and English
Directors Adam Shapiro, Perla Issa, Aseel Mansour

Relocated Mountains

After 25 years of exile due to Saddam’s repression of the Kurds, Sirwan travels back to Iraq in order to reconnect with the family he was forced to leave.

Synopsis In 1982, five year-old Sirwan Namo from Northern Iraq flees from Saddam Hussein’s military repression of the Kurds. He spends 16 years living in a refugee camp in northern Iran. In 2007, now thirty years old, Sirwan and his family resettle in New Zealand. Feeling that he cannot simply carry on living a good life whilst ignoring his past, we follow Sirwan’s journey as he travels back to Iraq, 25 years since fleeing, in order to reconnect with the family he was forced to leave.
Language English and Arabic

Director Matthew Metcalfe

Mujahjaheen

Captures the daily trials and tribulations of a Sudanese refugee family in Cairo’s unfamiliar environment.

Hussein Abdel Hameed, his wife Hanan and their five children fled war and discrimination in their native Sudan 7 years ago. They came to Egypt with hopes of better life only to find themselves facing hardships and alienation in an unfamiliar environment.
Language Arabic
Directors Jasmin Bauomy, Mariam Mekiwi, and Sarah Wali

Telling Strings

Connecting the history of two generations of Palestinians (Elias Jubran and his children), the film questions cultural identity between protest, resignation, and hope

The film connects the history of two generations of Palestinians: Elias Jubran (born 1933), a music teacher and oud builder in Al Jaleel in Galileo, and his children who all live very different lives in Israel, or have indeed left the country in search of a more open existence. What is necessary so that a culture – stuck in the threatening environment of the Israeli State – may continue to develop itself? The film questions cultural identity between protest, resignation and hope.
Language Arabic
Director Anne-Marie Haller