FOOD | ARTS | COMMUNITY | STYLE+LEISURE
GISH
AT THE
MOVIES
12TH ANNUAL PALESTINE FILM FESTIVAL
Ghost Hunting
The Houston Palestine Film Festival/HPFF (www.HPFF.org) presents films
occasionally throughout the year as well as their annual film festival,
which will be onscreen two weekends this year – May 5 and 6 at
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (www.MFAH.org) and May 11–13 at
Rice Cinema (www.ricecinema.rice.edu). One of only four such festivals in the
United States, HPFF has been presenting their annual program since
2006. Their goal is to expose Houston audiences to Palestinian culture
and identity through film – a worthy cause since it is through education
and exposure that the history of Palestinians and the diaspora can be
understood. HPFF is a non-political and non-religious organization.
The Festival opens with Raed Andoni’s documentary Ghost Hunting. A
former political prisoner himself, Andoni assembles a group of former
prisoners in an attempt to recreate the conditions of their imprisonment
and chronicle their memories and strategies for survival. The opening
weekend also features Wajib by Annemarie Jacir, which follows a
father-son duo (Mohammad and Saleh Bakri) around Nazareth as they
deliver wedding invitations to residents of their village.
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The second weekend will include Mohanad Yaqubi’s
Off Frame AKA Revolution Until Victory, bringing
together recently discovered archival footage from the
era of militant Palestinian filmmaking between 1968
to 1982, which showed the Palestinian struggle for
self-determination and their attempt to document their
history and narrative. Also on the schedule are Stitching
Pales tine by Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi, a
documentary that chronicles the memories and stories
of Palestinian women living in the diaspora, as well as
encore screenings of Ghost Hunting and Wajib.
By Sarah Gish | www.gishcreative.com
WANT TO SEE MORE ART FILMS?
14 Pews (www.14pews.org)
Alamo Drafthouse (www.drafthouse.com)
Asia Society (www.asiasociety.org/texas)
Aurora Picture Show (www.aurorapictureshow.org)
Blaffer Art Museum (www.blafferartmuseum.org)
Café Brasil (www.brasilcafehouston.com)
Wajib
Contemporary Arts Museum (www.camh.org)
Discovery Green (www.discoverygreen.com)
DiverseWorks (www.diverseworks.org)
Holocaust Museum (www.hmh.org)
Jewish Community Center (www.erjcchouston.org)
Landmark River Oaks Theatre (www.landmarktheatres.com)
Menil Collection (www.menil.org)
Miller Outdoor Theatre (www.milleroutdoortheatre.com)
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (www.mfah.org/films)
Orange Show (www.orangeshow.org)
Rice Cinema (www.ricecinema.rice.edu)
HPFF will also screen the short documentaries Wa’ad
(Promise) by Mohammad Shalodi and Visitation
by Noor Abu Ghaniah, among others, as well as
Measures of Distance, a video art piece by internation-
ally acclaimed Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum, the first
artist-in-residence at the Rice University Moody Center
for the Arts in 2017.
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