TPFF marks the 76th year of the Nakba with an evening of art and reflection. Marking the 7th month of the genocide, the evening’s program will reflect on the Nabka of the present and its ties to the Nakba of 1947/8.
TPFF’s commemoration event commences at 6pm with a reception in the lobby, which is then followed by artistic programming in cinema. We are then pleased to host a discussion with Dr. Ardi Imseis, one of the foremost legal experts on Palestine who will help us understand the structure of the Nakba and its impacts on generations of Palestinians. Stay tuned for complete programming details.
Register (free): https://TPFFNakba76.eventbrite.ca (first come first serve)
EVENT DETAILS:
6:00pm: Reception (light refreshments) and collective art project
6:30pm: Program starts
PROGRAM DETAILS:
Nakba Then & Now: Short Films Program
The Last Days of April by Laurence Buelens, Jean Forest (2021)
In the 5000-year-old Palestinian village of Battir, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, it is said that every stone contains a story. In April 1949, after a string of battles and massacres, the Israeli army reached the gates of Battir. A handful of villagers decide to use trickery to protect their home from the fate of their neighbours.
Layl (Night) by Ahmad Saleh (2021)
The dust of war keeps the eyes sleepless. Night brings peace and sleep to all the people in the broken town. Only the eyes of the mother of the missing child stay resilient. Night must trick her into sleeping to save her soul.
Keynote Speaker: Prof. Ardi Imseis
76 years of Nakba: a structure, not an event
From 1947 to today, Prof. Ardi Imseis will outline the legal and political structures used to perpetrate and challenge the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
About the Speaker
Dr. Ardi Imseis is a leading international law scholar on Palestine. He currently is a professor at the Faculty of Law at Queen’s University. Last year, Dr. Imseis published a landmark book “The United Nations and the Question of Palestine”, which critically examines the gulf between international law and United Nations’ action. He is also a member of the legal team that represented Palestine in February before the International Court of Justice hearings into the legal consequences of the continuing Israeli occupation. Dr. Imseis frequently appears as a legal expert in the media including Al Jazeera English and CBC.
Between 2002 and 2014, he served in senior legal and policy capacities with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (in Gaza and Jerusalem), and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He has provided expert testimony before various high-level bodies, including the UN Security Council and to members of the House of Lords in the UK and the French Senate. Between 2019-2021, Dr. Imseis was appointed by the United Nations to serve on a commission of inquiry on human rights violations in Yemen. Between 2008-2019, he served as editor-in-chief of the Palestine Yearbook of International Law and his scholarship has appeared in a wide array of international journals.