Chicago Palestine Film Festival

Walls serve as more than barriers in the documentary When Walls Speak. The director May Odeh reflects: “In my childhood in Palestine, walls and what was written on them were my daily newspaper. But the years have passed and the situation has changed along with our dreams. So what has happened to my walls?”

Kheir and Saado are old bohemian friends who live in occupied Old Akka, in the North of Israel. One is a singer and the other a fruit and vegetable merchant who roams the town on his horse Mercedes selling his grandmother’s famous pickles. Then one day the police accuse him of stealing an antique gun and a whole series of comic situations lead to a surprising ending as two journalists seek out the grandmother whose homemade pickles have special powers in Pickled.

Two flirting kids, a slingshot and the Israeli army figure in a scenario of budding love in Neighbors.

A father’s harsh relationship with his son triggers madness in Eyas Salman’s Noor featuring rising star Saleh Bakri.

Two parallel dramas play out via walkie-talkie and rifle scope while an Israeli army sniper stalks a pair of lovers. The View explores the psychology of violence in the absence of restraints. Winner of Best Short Film at the Franco-Arab Film Festival 2008.

The Heart of Jenin is the story of Ahmed Chatib, a Palestinian boy shot by Israeli soldiers whose father, Ismail Chatib, decided, within twelve hours, to donate his son’s organs to six Israeli children to save their lives.

One and a half years have passed since then. To find out how his deed changed the lives of the recipients’ families, Ismail travels throughout Israel, from its northern hills on the Lebanese border, past the contended Holy City of Jerusalem and up to the edge of the Negev Desert in the south.

Filmed during the massive Israeli war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006, 33 Days follows the real-life stories of four people: A theatre director working with children who take shelter in a theatre after their homes are destroyed, a journalist struggling to cover the war from a television station under fire, an aid worker coordinating emergency relief efforts for thousands of displaced people, and a news-desk director trying to cope not only with the war, but with her new-born baby.

Salt of This Sea is the story of Soraya, born in Brooklyn in a working class community of Palestinian refugees, who discovers that her grandfather’s savings were frozen in a bank account in Jaffa when he was exiled in 1948. Stubborn, passionate and determined to reclaim what is hers, she fulfills her life-long dream of “returning” to Palestine.