TIFF Bell Lightbox, Cinema 1

State of Passion
Screening with: Lulu

Duration: 90 min Director: Carol Mansour & Muna Khalidi Genre: Documentary Year: 2024
Country: Lebanon, Jordan, UK, Kuwait, Palestine Languages: English and Arabic with Subtitles

ALL PROCEEDS FROM THIS SCREENING WILL BE DONATED TO GLIA - MEDICAL SUPPORT IN GAZA. We also welcome donations to the TPFF x GLIA Gaza health fundraising campaign.

Screening will be followed by a Q&A with Dr. Tarek Loubani, member of Glia’s team, and physician serving in Gaza’s hospitals.

Description:
After 43 horrific days working round the clock under constant bombardment in the emergency rooms of Gaza’s Al Shifa and Al Ahli hospitals, British-Palestinian reconstructive surgeon, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, emerged to find himself as a face of Palestinian resistance.

With news footage of him pale and shell-shocked reverberating around the world, he spoke of a catalogue of horrors from lacerated bodies, to amputations without anesthetics, orphaned children with no surviving family, and the deliberate targeting of medics and hospital facilities.

This was Ghassan’s sixth and most horrific Gaza “war”. Why does he do it? Where does he find the strength to face it again and again? How does it impact his family? How do they process the risks he takes? The answer lies simply in their shared passion: Palestine, a passion they articulate through their support of his perilous humanitarian work.

Filmmakers Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi, close friends of the Abu Sittahs, share that same passion. They were waiting anxiously for Ghassan to emerge from Gaza, following a long and terrifying journey through the night, to meet him in Amman. Determined to capture his raw emotions they began filming him the moment he arrived through the door. Following him to Beirut, Amman, London, Kuwait and Dubai, they and he explore their common State of Passion.

Awards: Cairo Int’l Film Fest: Best Arab Film, Jury Award, Silver Prize for Best Palestinian Film; KARAMA HRFF: Audience Award
More Info: State of Passion