60 mins
Panel Discussion

Following screening of Brooklyn, Inshallah, TPFF will be hosting a lively panel discussion around the arts and community activation of diverse communities. The discussion is inspired by the film and not a response to the film.

The panel is open to participants who do not attend the film screening.

PANEL DESCRIPTION

Over the years, TPFF has screened numerous Palestinian films spotlighting community mobilizing for change in Palestine. More recently, films like Brooklyn, Inshallah have focused on marginalized Arab/Palestinian communities in the US organizing for local change. In an increasingly politicized climate, and on the eve of a federal election, our panellists will discuss their practices (film-making, curatorial, scholarly) and knowledge of using art to engage historically disenfranchised communities to mobilize for social change. They will also reflect on whether artistic strategies need to shift to address today’s polarized climate.

60 minute panel. Afterwards, conversations can continue at Founder's Lounge next to cinema.

The panel takes place after the screening of Brooklyn, Inshallah and is open to participants who do not attend the film screening.

PANELLISTS

Wanda Nanibush is an Anishinaabe-kwe curator, image and word warrior, and community organizer. Currently she is the inaugural curator of Indigenous Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario in new Indigenous & Canadian art department which she co-leads with Georgiana Uhlyarik Nanibush holds a masters in Visual Studies from the University of Toronto where she has taught graduate courses. She is touring the exhibitions Rebecca Belmore Facing the Monumental (AGO), Sovereign Acts.

Alison Duke is an artistic activist, award-winning filmmaker and passionate producer committed to the Canadian visual art form. She established Goldelox Productions to produce social issue content. In 2016, she produced the Akua Benjamin Legacy Project, a digital web series which celebrates the legacies of Toronto-based black activists Inspired by Ava Duvernay, #metoo and the reality that opportunities for women behind the camera in Canada are long overdue, Alison hired five black female Canadian directors to helm the films. Recently, she co-wrote and co-produced the television documentary Mr. Jane and Finch (19) directed by Ngardy Conteh George (and edited by Sonia Godding Tobogo) for CBCDocs POV. She also directed, Cool Black North (19), a two hour television documentary special for CityTV/Rogers. Current activities sees her producing Laurie Townshend's, feature documentary, Mothering in the Movement under Oya Media Group banner and kickstarting Year2 of Black Youth! Pathway2Industry, a 3- year initiative to support black youth access essential training, mentors, networks and film industry spaces.  

Hiba Abdallah is an artist and organizer who frequently works with others. Her practice explores locality, civic agency and collaborative structures as tools for gathering, learning and making. She received her BFA from the University of Windsor in 2012 and her MFA from the University of Guelph in 2017. She currently lives and works in Toronto, Ontario.

MODERATOR:

Richard Fung

Richard Fung is an award-winning Trinidad-born video artist and cultural critic. Until recently, he was Professor, Faculty of Art, OCAD University, where he taught courses in Integrated Media and Art and Social Change. His work and essays tackle challenging subjects ranging from the role of the Asian male in gay pornography to colonialism, immigration, racism, homophobia, 

HIV/AIDS, justice in Israel/Palestine, and his own family history. Richard is a longstanding member of the TPFF advisory board.  

Trinity Square Video,
FREE ADMITTANCE
all welcome. DJ, beverages, snacks.

A feisty fiesta celebrating the work and talents of Toronto-based Palestinian and Middle-Eastern artists and filmmakers, hosted at Canada's oldest media arts co-op. A chance for our communities to gather, share a beverage, get to know one other and share about new projects. At 10pm, Trinity and TPFF will together announce the winner of the inaugural Trinity/TPFF Local Pal Award, given to the best short film by an emerging Palestinian-Toronto artist, screened at this years festival -- and then we'll announce the launch of our new TPFF/LIFT Film Commission project, which will commission four new films ($10K each) in the coming year by Toronto-based Palestinian artists.

GENEROUSLY CO-PRESENTED BY:
TPFF, Vtape, Trinity Square Video, Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) and York University's Cinema & Media Arts (50th anniversary), A Space Gallery

What if all the Palestinians simply disappeared one day?
What would happen next?
How would Israelis react?

TPFF is launching our 2019 festival with an author talk and book launch featuring highly acclaimed Palestinian novelist and journalist Ibtisam Azem. The talk will be moderated by Thea Lim, Giller Prize finalist for her novel 'An Ocean of Minutes'.

We will be celebrating the release of the new English translation of 'The Book of Disappearance' translated by Sinan Antoon. The novel is a fantasy genre story that imagines what would happen if Palestinians vanished.

Location: TIFF Bell Lightbox, The Lab (4th Floor)
Doors: 6:30pm
Free with registration - PLEASE NOTE: Seats are first come first serve because this is a free event.

Copies of 'The Book of Disappearance' can be purchased at a discounted price ($25.50 tax included) via eventbrite. Book purchase will also guarantee you a seat at the event! The author will be signing books after her talk.

Copresented with our friends Another Story Bookshop - one of the best bookstores in Toronto! They are also supplying the books for the event.

IBTISAM AZEM
Ibtisam Azem is a Palestinian short story writer, novelist, and journalist, based in New York. She is a senior correspondent for the Arabic daily al-Araby al-Jadeed. She has published two novels in Arabic: The Sleep Thief and The Book of Disappearance. Some of her writings have been translated and published in French, German and English in several anthologies and journals. She is working on her third novel and pursuing an MA in Social Work from NYU’s Silver school.

THEA LIM
Thea Lim is a Professor of Creative Writing in the Faculty of the Humanities and Social Sciences (Sheridan College). Her 2018 novel An Ocean of Minutes was nominated for the Giller Prize, released across the world and in multiple languages, and has been optioned for a TV series. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston, and she has received multiple awards and fellowships for her work.

THE BOOK OF DISAPPEARANCE
What if all the Palestinians in Israel simply disappeared one day? What would happen next? How would Israelis react? These unsettling questions are posed in Azem’s powerfully imaginative novel. Set in contemporary Tel Aviv forty eight hours after Israelis discover all their Palestinian neighbors have vanished, the story unfolds through alternating narrators, Alaa, a young Palestinian man who converses with his dead grandmother in the journal he left behind when he disappeared, and his Jewish neighbor, Ariel, a journalist struggling to understand the traumatic event. Through these perspectives, the novel stages a confrontation between two memories. Ariel is a liberal Zionist who is critical of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, but nevertheless believes in Israel’s project and its national myth. Alaa is haunted by his grandmother’s memories of being displaced from Jaffa and becoming a refugee in her homeland. Ariel’s search for clues to the secret of the collective disappearance and his reaction to it intimately reveal the fissures at the heart of the Palestinian question.