TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 119 minutes | Directed by Annemarie Jacir | Fiction | 2025 | Palestine, United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Norway, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan

Screening with Endless Sunlight

Synopsis: Palestine, 1936. The uprising that took on an Empire. As villages across Mandatory Palestine rise against British colonial rule, Yusuf drifts between his rural home and the restless energy of Jerusalem, longing for a future beyond the growing unrest. But history is relentless. With rising numbers of Jewish immigrants escaping antisemitism in Europe, and the Palestinian population uniting in the largest and longest uprising against Britain's 30-year dominion, all sides spiral towards inevitable collision in a decisive moment for the British Empire and the future of the entire region. 

Awards: Tokyo International Film Festival – Tokyo Grand Prix (Best Film); São Paulo International Film Festival – Audience Award (Best International Feature); Asian World Film Festival – Special Jury Award (Best Film) 

Endless Sunlight was selected to precede Palestine 36 with the assistance of our friends at ImagineNATIVE to foster further intersectional solidarity between our audience — those born into and those sympathetic to the Palestinian struggle for liberation — and the Indigenous peoples of the land we are situated on; those who we share parallel histories with despite the distance between our homelands. During our opening night, this year falling on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we aim to continue bridging our people together through the use of cinema as we colour the viewing experience of Palestine 36 with that of Kokum Penny Roan’s thoughts and recollections. We hope that as our audience reflects on the past and present context of Palestine and Palestinians as they watch Palestine 36, Endless Sunlight will be a catalyst for those reflections to extend to the past and present conditions of the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island.

More Info: palestine36film.com

Co-Curated by: ImagineNATIVE

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 8 minutes | Directed by Tyson Houseman (Nêhiyaw) | Short Documentary | 2026 | Treaty 6

Screening with Palestine 36

Synopsis: Five generations of matriarchal lineage are weaved across time as Kokum Penny Roan describes how her uncle burned down a residential school when he was a child.

Tyson Houseman is a Nêhiyaw video artist, performer, and filmmaker from Paul First Nation.

I wrote a novel but I don't think they deserve anything less. Thoughts? Love? Hate?

Endless Sunlight was selected to precede Palestine 36 with the assistance of our friends at ImagineNATIVE to foster further intersectional solidarity between our audience — those born into and those sympathetic to the Palestinian struggle for liberation — and the Indigenous peoples of the land we are situated on; those who we share parallel histories with despite the distance between our homelands. During our opening night, this year falling on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we aim to continue bridging our people together through the use of cinema as we colour the viewing experience of Palestine 36 with that of Kokum Penny Roan’s thoughts and recollections. We hope that as our audience reflects on the past and present context of Palestine and Palestinians as they watch Palestine 36, Endless Sunlight will be a catalyst for those reflections to extend to the past and present conditions of the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island.

Co-Curated by: ImagineNATIVE

Join us for an evening with Assal Rad, and her new book "Don't Say Palestine: How the Media Manufactured Consent for Genocide". 

She will be joined in conversation with journalist Samira Mohyeddin, On The Line Media. Together, they will discuss how mainstream Western media uses biased framing in their reporting to downplay Israeli violence and dehumanize Palestinians to justify and bolster support for genocide in Gaza.

Date: Thursday, October 1, 2026
Venue: TIFF Lightbox, 350 King St W
Time: 6:00 PM  (more details closer to the event)

Book signing to follow event. Purchase books via this form for a special 20% discount. (Regular priced books available at TIFF store while supplies last)

The event is co-presented by Canadian Journalists for Justice in Palestine, On The Line Media, Canadian Independent Media Fund, and Another Story Bookshop.

Book Description:

A searing indictment of Western media that lays bare how the “free press,” long tasked with speaking truth to power, instead became a vital part of the machinery that enabled the genocide in Palestine.

If you’re not writing the truth about crimes against humanity, you’re culpable in them.

Activist and Middle East historian Assal Rad is known as the “headline fixer” for her powerful posts that illustrate how mainstream Western media’s coverage of the Gaza Genocide is filled with double standards. 

In Don’t Say Palestine, Rad reveals a pattern of dehumanizing language—in outlets from CNN and the AP to the BBC and The New York Times—so consistently employed throughout the Palestinian genocide that it amounts to a policy. Mainstream Western media consistently downplays Israeli responsibility, “others” Palestinians, and casts doubt on inviolable tenets of international law like the sanctity of hospitals and journalists in war zones. This groundbreaking, eye-opening exposé offers both a moral reckoning and an urgent call to action, mapping with devastating clarity the media’s complicity in whitewashing a human rights crisis.              

Bios: 

ASSAL RAD is an activist, historian of the modern Middle East, and a Fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC and DAWN. Her first book, The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek, The National Interest, The Independent, Foreign Policy, and more, and she has appeared as a commentator on BBC World, Al Jazeera, CNN, NPR, and elsewhere.

SAMIRA MOHYEDDIN is a multi-award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and producer with extensive experience in public media. For nearly a decade, she was a producer at CBC Radio’s national flagship current affairs programme The Current, and also served as a host for CBC Podcasts and guest co-host on As It Happens. In 2023, she founded On The Line Media, an independent media company committed to amplifying the voices most needed to help audiences make sense of the world. The company’s work centres on intimate storytelling, critical conversations, and informed analysis.

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 2

Film Details: 18 minutes | Directed by Omar Mouallem | Homegrown Shorts | Short Fiction | 2025 | Canada | English | Toronto Premiere |

Screening as a part of Homegrown Shorts Program

Synopsis: Looking for friendship in a new country, Nader (Anas Hasan), a Palestinian international student, moves in with two chauvinistic bros who exploit him for rent money and social currency during a wave of pro-Palestinian campus protests. Hoping to fit in, Nader invents a girlfriend named "Cynthia" (Megan Tracz), who gradually becomes a warped projection of Nader's insecurities as a foreigner. As fantasy and reality blur, he must decide whether to end the illusion or keep clinging to the only 'person' who values him. Based on a short story by Saeed Teebi from his acclaimed book "Her First Palestinian," NADER'S GIRL is a darkly funny and sometimes disturbing exploration of masculinity, assimilation and performative allyship. 

Awards (selected): Edmonton International Film Festival, MENA Film Festival, Brampton International Film Festival, MENA Canadian Filmmaker Grant Prize (2024) 

Website: nadersgirl.com

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 2

Film Details: 22.35 minutes | Directed by Yuula Benivolski | Homegrown Shorts | Short Documentary Experimental | 2025 | Canada, Palestine |

Screening as a part of Homegrown Shorts Program

Synopsis: Yaqoub Al-Natsheh (Abu Waheed) has worked with glass since he was a child; his family's glassmaking history traces back to the 13th century. Traditional family recipes were replaced by melting down recycled glass after Israel's separation wall carved up the West Bank. His studio sits 50 feet from the Ibrahimi Mosque, site of the 1994 massacre of 29 Palestinian men during morning prayer; since then Hebron has seen a growing presence of illegal settlers and occupation soldiers. The filmmaker shot Abu Waheed at work in May 2022; the following morning, journalist Shireen Abu Akleh — cousin of a friend on the shoot — was killed by an occupation sniper despite wearing press identification. The title comes from Abu Waheed's own description of how his glass designs come to him at night before he shapes them at the furnace the next day.

Awards (selected): Milwaukee Underground Film Festival – Juror's Award for Best of Fest; DOXA Documentary Film Festival — nominated, Best Short Documentary; screened at In the Making, Barbican, London 

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 2

Film Details: 12 minutes | Directed by Rania Lardjane and Adham Sinan | Homegrown Shorts | Short Documentary | 2026 | Palestine | Created through the Toronto Palestine Film Festival Residency 

Screening as a part of Homegrown Shorts Program

Synopsis: A lifeguard in his late 60s from the Palestinian National Rescue Team-North District who seems to be highly dedicated to his job watches over the beaches of the sea, until we realise he is simply sitting on a rooftop overlooking the apartheid wall.

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 2

Film Details: 18 minutes | Directed by Sam Mualim Alcalde and Francisca Rojas | Homegrown Shorts | Short Documentary | 2026 | Canada | Created through the Toronto Palestine Film Festival Residency 

Screening as a part of Homegrown Shorts Program

Synopsis: A trans, Chilean-Palestinian refugee embarks on a journey towards finding safety and belonging, while reconnecting with the roots of their intergenerational displacement.

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 2

Film Details: 88 minutes | Directed by Zain Duraie | Fiction | 2025 | Jordan, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia | Debut Feature Q&A TO FOLLOW

Screening with Stuck

Synopsis: When her teenage son Basil is suspended from school after a disturbing outburst, Nadia refuses to believe anything is seriously wrong, convincing herself he simply needs discipline and guidance. But as Basil's behavior grows increasingly volatile and his mental state begins to unravel, Nadia finds herself trapped between denial, fear, and an overwhelming need to protect him. As the pressure inside their home intensifies, cracks in the family's carefully maintained façade surface. Struggling against stigma, silence, and her own emotional exhaustion, Nadia clings to the hope that love alone can save her son — until she is forced to confront painful truths she has long avoided. Set in contemporary Jordan, Sink is an intimate psychological drama about motherhood, mental illness, and unconditional love.

Selected at: TIFF, BFI London Film Festival, Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival, Red Sea International Film Festival, Carthage International Film Festival, Toronto Arab Film Festival | Toronto International Film Festival

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 2

Film Details: 11 minutes | Directed by Usman Ally | Short Fiction | 2025 | USA | Canadian Premiere

Screening with Sink

Synopsis: One morning, Dana — a drifting young Palestinian-American woman — wakes up unaware that the world has just shifted. Still tangled in the haze of the previous night, she is startled by the presence of her father, Saleh Said, a legendary Palestinian activist, appearing as his younger, charismatic revolutionary self from the 1960s. As Dana stumbles through a tense Chicago afternoon, she begins to feel the weight of being visibly Arab in a city suddenly more alert to her presence — a keffiyeh draws stares, her phone fills with news of violence and impending retaliation. Her father pushes her to speak, to reclaim her voice at the peace symposium she's scheduled to attend that night, even as she wants only to disappear from her inheritance, her fear, and him. 

Website: usmanally.com/stuck

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 2

Film Details: 7.55 minutes | Directed by Hamdi Khalil Elhusseini, Samar Taher Lulu | Short Documentary | 2024 | Palestine | Arabic with English Subtitles

Screening as a part of Views from Gaza Shorts Program

Synopsis: Adas Falasteen tells the story of a Palestinian chef and his role in using his hobby as a shield against the famine caused by the war on Gaza, preserving the spirit of resilience and hope within his community. 

Awards: Al Jazeera Documentary Award; Best Documentary Cinematography Award at FICIMAD; official selection, Touchstone Independent Film Festival

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 2

Film Details: 15 minutes | Directed by Ibrahim Yaghi | Short Fiction | 2026 | Switzerland, Belgium | Canadian Premiere

Screening as a part of Views from Gaza Shorts Program

Synopsis: Salem and Leila, an elderly couple in their seventies, live in a fragile tent overlooking the sea in Gaza after their home was destroyed and their three sons were killed. Their days pass slowly through simple routines: washing clothes, baking bread, waiting in food lines, and listening to the radio. One day, they find a chili seed among the ruins of their former home and decide to plant it beside their tent — a small gesture of life and resilience. Meanwhile, Salem lights the fire for coffee using torn pages from an old book about the history of Gaza, pausing to read fragments before they turn to ash. 

Award: Short Film Corner Catalogue, Cannes 2026

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 2

Film Details: 22 minutes | Directed by Maria Marrone | Short Documentary | 2026 | Palestine | North American Premiere |

Screening as a part of Views from Gaza Shorts Program

Synopsis: When Mosab, a skilled software engineer, is separated from his wife and children as they evacuate Gaza for emergency medical care, he's left behind with only uncertainty and a laptop. Alone in a city under siege, he begins building a virtual reality program designed to help survivors of genocide cope with mental trauma. As genocide rages around him, Mosab immerses himself in creating digital worlds of calm and reflection, balancing his own loneliness with a drive to serve others — work that eventually makes him a target for Israel. It's an intimate portrait of resilience: holding on to family through distance, building connection through technology, and refusing to let go of hope. 

Awards (selected): Special Mention, DOXA Documentary Film Festival; World Premiere, Slamdance Film Festival 2024; official selections at Chicago Palestine Film Festival 2026 and multiple others

Website: https://www.mariamarrone.com 

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 2

Film Details: 11 minutes | Directed by Yaffa Aboudib Husseini | Short Animation | 2025 | Canada, Ireland |

Synopsis: Orphaned and displaced from their home in Gaza City, two brothers must find their way to a "safe zone" to survive. Forced to grow up much too fast, the boys confront pain and loss on their tragic path along the shoreline. Sing to the Wind is a short, 2D animated film that tells the story of perseverance through the eyes of a child, and the resilience of a people in the face of ceaseless brutality. 

Awards (selected): Winner, Best Animation, Open World Toronto Film Festival 2025; Winner, Best Student Narrative, Animaze Montreal International Animation Festival 2025; Winner, Best Short Animation, Sundar Prize Film Festival 2026 

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 2

Film Details: 35 minutes | Directed by Maha Haj | Short Fiction | 2024 | Italy, France | Arabic with English subtitles | Not a premiere | Featured cast: Mohammad Bakri, Amer Hlehel, Areen Omari |

Synopsis: Withdrawn from the world, a couple's carefully constructed fantasy life is jeopardized by an uninvited guest who brings forth a devastating revelation from their past, challenging their delicate reality. 

Awards: Locarno Film Festival — Golden Pardino (Leopards of Tomorrow, Auteur Competition); El Gouna Film Festival — Golden Star (Short Films Competition); Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival — Audience Award, nominated for Grand Prix 

Join the Toronto Palestine Film Festival and the Textile Museum as we honour the art and history of Palestinian thobes.

Date: October 1, 2026, 6:00pm 

Venue: TIFF Lightbox, Gallery

The Textile Museum of Canada will be hosting a special exhibition Retracing Tatreez: Palestinian Thobes through the 20th Century from September 24, 2025-May 2, 2027,

TPFF is thrilled to host a talk by Nina Rafique, the exhibition's curator. She will explore the exhibition's collection of thobes and reveal the stories of family, exile and resistance these thobes tell through their embroidered stitches. 

Copresented with the Textile Museum of Canada. 

Bio

Nina Rafique is an emerging textile artist, curator, and researcher living in Toronto, with roots in Palestine and Pakistan. Retracing Tatreez, her debut exhibition at the Textile Museum of Canada, stems from eight months of research on the Museum’s collection of Palestinian and Syrian embroideries. She is inspired by and indebted to the original makers of these pieces, and hopes to raise appreciation for their work by making it more widely accessible.

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 2

Film Details: 75 minutes | Directed by Lana Daher | Documentary | 2025 | France, Lebanon, Germany, Qatar | Toronto Premiere Q&A TO FOLLOW

Screening with Every Grain of Dirt

Synopsis: Do You Love Me is personal journey through Lebanon’s audiovisual memory, composed entirely of archival footage. It is a love letter to Beirut, spanning 70 years of film, TV, home videos, and photography, exploring the Lebanese collective psyche – marked by joy and intimacy, destruction and loss. Through the eyes of citizens, filmmakers and artists, the film reconstructs a fragmented history in a country without a national archive, celebrating creative expression as both resistance, renewal and a way to preserve memory. 

World premiere: 82nd Venice International Film Festival

Music from the Film: doyouloveme.film

Co-Presented by our friends at With Love

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 2

Film Details: 17 minutes | Directed by Aya Chouaib and Julie Mallet | Short Documentary | 2026 | Lebanon | Canadian Premiere

Screening with Do You Love Me

Synopsis:  Every Grain of Dirt documents life in South Lebanon under ongoing threats of displacement and war. As sweeping evacuation orders force over a million people from their homes, some choose to remain. Among them is Ismail, a shepherd who refuses to leave his village — even as bulldozers arrive to erase it, nearly burying him alive as he stands in defiance before the machine.

Filmed by three women who enter an active war zone to document these stories, the film moves between intimate testimony and a landscape under siege.

Through the voices of those who remain — and those who return — the documentary traces the persistent bond between people and land. It examines how land becomes a frontline: not only of war, but of identity, survival, and resistance against forces that seek to uproot and erase.

In every grain of dirt, a history persists; in every refusal to leave, a quiet act of resistance.

Join us for a hands-on all-ages Tatreez workshop led by Learn Palestine. Learn basic stitches, patterns, and the stories carried in each motif and make yourself a wearable item you can enjoy after the workshop.

Date: Saturday October 3, 2026 and Sunday, October 4, 2026
Venue: TIFF Lightbox, 350 King St W, Gallery
Time: 12:30 PM  (more details closer to the event)

This workshop is open to all skill levels and ages including children.  Participants will be seated together based on their skills and age groups (children/youth and adults). 

Spaces are limited.  Workshop fees ($15) are for the purchase of materials. If costs are a barrier to participation please email us.

Please cancel your registration if you no longer can attend. Refunds may be issued if cancelled spots are filled by other participants. 

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 92 minutes | Directed by Colette Ghunim | Documentary | 2026 | United States | Canadian Premiere |

Synopsis: From filmmaker Colette Ghunim comes an extraordinary journey of self-discovery, as she undertakes a quest to reunite her parents with the ancestral homes they were forced to flee as children in Palestine and Mexico. Filmed over five years and featuring evocative animation and archival footage, Traces of Home is a meditation on memory and an unflinching look at what it takes to find our way back home to ourselves.

Award: Grand Jury Prize, Best U.S. Documentary — DOC NYC

Website: watermelonpictures.com/films/traces-of-home

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 105 minutes | Directed by Maiken Baird | Documentary | 2026 | USA

Following the screening, join us in the Gallery for a panel on Edward Said’s legacy
Saturday, October 3, 2026, 5:15 PM

Synopsis: Told in Palestinian-American scholar and intellectual Edward Said's own voice, this sweeping archival documentary traces the evolution of his political awakening, personal struggles, and reckoning with a life of exile. It is the first documentary granted full access by the Said family and estate, featuring never-before-seen material from the family archive, the Said archive at Columbia University, decades of unseen home movies, rare television appearances, documentaries, and lectures. Spanning seven decades — from Said's childhood in Jerusalem in 1935 to his death in 2003 in New York City — the film follows a man celebrated as a prophet and vilified as a terrorist, America's most outspoken critic of the West and Palestine's fiercest advocate, inviting audiences to question who has the right to tell their own story. 

Award: CPH:DOX 2025 — Al-Jazeera Co-Production Award 

Join us for a post-screening panel on the life, work, and lasting influence of renowned Palestinian thinker Edward Said. 

The panel will take place immediately after the screening of Edward Said: Between Worlds. A separate ticket must be purchased to watch the film. A film ticket is not required to attend the panel. 

Date: October 3, 2026

Screening: 3:15pm (Cinema 1)

Panel: 5:15pm (Gallery Space) 

This panel, featuring  Dr, Ardi Imseis and Dr. Lara El Makaui, will be an open dialogue and discussion about Edward Said and his enduring impact on culture, politics, and society, including the Question of Palestine and beyond. The conversation will be moderated by Jerry Jareer Khouri. 

Panellists: 

Dr. Ardi Imseis is Associate Professor, Queen’s Law School, and a scholar-practitioner of public international law. He is a former UN official with UNRWA and UNHCR (2002-2014), as well as a Member of the UN commission of inquiry on Yemen (2019-2021). He has served as legal counsel and advocate in cases before the International Court of Justice, and has provided expert testimony in his personal capacity before other high-level bodies, including the UN Security Council, UN Human Rights Council and UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Among other things, he is author ofThe United Nations and the Question of Palestine (Cambridge University Press 2023), he is former Editor-in-Chief of thePalestine Yearbook of International Law (Brill; 2008-2019), and Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Human Rights Fellow, Columbia Law School. Professor Imseis holds a Ph.D. (Cambridge), an LL.M. (Columbia), LL.B. (Dalhousie), and B.A. (Hons.) (Toronto).

Dr. Lara El Mekaui is a Research Fellow at the Global Migration Institute at Toronto Metropolitan University, where her work focuses on foresight and futures methodologies for migration research. She also teaches English and Communications courses at the University of Waterloo.

Lara holds a PhD in English Literature from the University of Waterloo, specializing in Transnational and Decolonial Theory, and an MA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut. Her doctoral work at the University of Waterloo introduced the concept of “hesitant belonging” to examine belonging, generational trauma, and forced migration.

A Lebanese immigrant and Ukrainian refugee in Canada, her research examines belonging, temporality, and forced migration through creative and analytical frameworks. She is also Lead Non-Fiction Editor at The New Quarterly.

Jerry J. Khouri has 25 years in public and private experience. He served six cabinet Ministers at the Ontario Government including Director of Policy for International Trade, Environment, and as Senior Advisor to Finance/Treasury Board and Attorney General. He is a business development and policy professional with knowledge and expertise in public policy and government, economic strategy, international trade and political risk.

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 84 minutes | Directed by Maggie Lemere | Documentary | 2025 | Palestine | Canadian Premiere

Screening with "Intersecting Memory"

Synopsis: Land of Canaan is an environmental portrait immersing viewers in the lives of Palestinian farmers and their ancient olive trees — living symbols of heritage and land stewardship. The film follows Dr. Nasser Abufarha's return to the occupied West Bank, where he finds the olive harvest industry in crisis and leads a movement to protect a fragile ecosystem and generations of ecological knowledge. Many of the featured olive trees are over 1,000 years old, rooted in regenerative, biodiversity-rich ecosystems. The film explores how food sovereignty, fair trade, and environmental stewardship become acts of cultural survival under occupation, and highlights the work of Canaan Palestine and the Trees for Life initiative, which supports over 2,400 artisan farming families across 52 villages and has helped plant more than 429,000 trees throughout the West Bank. 

Awards: Trento Film Festival — Best Documentary on Current Affairs; Arizona International Film Festival — Best Documentary; Ely MN Film Festival — Best Cinematography; Nordic Palestine Film Festival — Jury Special Honorable Mention

Website: landofcanaanfilm.com

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 20 minutes | Directed by Shayma' Awawdeh | Documentary | 2025 | Palestine, France | Toronto Premiere 

Screening with Land of Canaan

Synopsis: During the Second Intifada in occupied Palestine, fear, siege, and death define the reality of the city of Hebron. Moments from the past are revived through childhood memory, intersecting with the collective memory. Amid the continuity and repetition of it all: what do we remember? What do we forget?

TPFF Presents Excentrik X NARCY: On Song, Storytelling and Worldbuilding

Celebrated Alternative Arab musicians NARCY and Excentrik have been collaborators for close to 20 years. In this unique sit-down event, the two will discuss their roles in the evolving world of Arab-Forward music, the role of the artist in times of great upheaval and worldbuilding outside the reality we exist in through song and lyric. 

Sharing the stage, they invite us into the making of their latest releases, NARCY's magnus opus "To Be An (Arab)" and Excentrik's Instrumental soundtrack to Palestine "Watani77" and the perils of Identity politics in pop culture.  Music and video will weave through their conversation to create an immersive experience.

They will conclude the night by spinning vinyl together - playing classics and contemporary music from Arab artists back home and in the Diaspora. 

Date: October 3, 7:30pm

Venue: TIFF Lightbox, Gallery

NARCY is a celebrated multi-hyphenate. He is commonly known as the formative Iraqi voice in Hip-Hop culture and a staunch believer in independence. His work has spanned across genres - from songs with yasiin bey and Dave Chappelle, Yo-Yo Ma and Mashrou ' Leila, Todd Rundgren and Mo Amer. His directorial work has garnered him awards, and his professorship at Concordia University have been international news making announcements, mixing the current zeitgeist in Hip-Hop with philosophy, media studies and political science. He is currently teaching a class on Drake in the Fall. He is also the co-owner of MAKTABA Bookshop in the heart of Old Montréal. 

https://www.narcy.online/

Excentrik is a SF Bay Area based Palestinian multimedia artist, producer and musician. Known as a pioneer of Arab American hip hop, his expansive body of work spans records, film scores, and experimental projects including the genre-less solo album Now Here, Nowhere. He co-produced the Arab Summit album, “Fear of an Arab Planet” alongside Narcy and Omar Offendum as well as Naima Shalhoub’s debut LP Siphr, which led to the formation of the Arabic-groove quartet, The Shadow Band. His latest album, Watani 77, is an improvised 77-minute somber ode to 77 years of Nakba, colonization and occupation in Palestine. 

www.badpalestinian.com

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 100 minutes | Directed by Rakan Mayasi | Fiction | 2026 | Belgium, Lebanon, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia | English and Arabic

Screening with This Dissonance

Synopsis: In the quiet fog of the Bekaa Valley, on the border between Lebanon and Syria, someone sets fire to a truck, and with it a spark of trouble spreads through a tightly woven Bedouin community. Gamra is gone – maybe hiding, maybe running – and her cousin Yasser takes to the roads to find her. The deeper he looks, the more he runs into old grudges and the slow, burning logic of revenge. Back home, his sisters, Jawaher and Rim, are chosen to make things right. They are not asked but offered. One is calm, the other resists, but both know how quickly girls can be traded for peace. This is a film about what happens in the quiet, in fields, behind curtains, inside vans. It is about women who carry too much, men who speak in codes and a land that holds its breath, waiting for something to end…or begin.

YESTERDAY THE EYE DIDN'T SLEEP is the widely aclaimed feature debut of Palestinian director Rakan Mayasi. Shot without a traditional script and featuring a cast of nonprofessional actors, the story is inspired by Mayasi’s grandmother’s story.

The film had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Caméra d'Or.

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 5.5 minutes | Directed by Christophe Katrib | Documentary, Experimental | 2024 | United States, Lebanon | Toronto Premiere |

Screening with Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep

Synopsis: Through poetic visual and aural fragmentation, This Dissonance navigates the emotional terrain of exile, colonialism, and resistance. The film weaves Palestinian and Lebanese voices with sweeping "American" landscapes, capturing the aching dissonance of witnessing U.S.-backed atrocities from afar, and resulting in a searing reflection on the generational toll of empire.

Awards: MONO NO AWARE Cinema Arts Festival, New York (2024); DOXA Documentary Film Festival — nominated, Best Short Documentary (2025); New Orleans Film Festival — Jury Award for Best Experimental Short (2025); Beirut Shorts International Film Festival — Winner, Best Documentary Short, Academy Awards-qualifying (2025) 

Drop in and enjoy the coffee, freshly-made manaeesh and some live tunes!

Join us for TPFF Sahtain! Cafe, a special edition of our beloved Sahtain! gathering, presented in collaboration with Nile Coffee & Bar and Makann.

No registration required – just drop in!

Date: Sunday, October 4, 2026, 9am-3pm

Location: Nile Coffee & Bar | 1485 Dundas St. W., Toronto

Come for the signature coffee and fresh manakeesh, stay for the live music and good company.

Performance schedule to be announced shortly

About our partners:

Nile Coffee Club is a black owned coffee brand aimed at helping you transform the ordinary act of sipping coffee into a moment of creative inspiration. Their coffee is ethically sourced from a network of small farmers in Africa and South America, and roasted in small batches.

Makann, founded in February 2026, has quickly become a Toronto go-to for Palestinian-inspired breakfast sandwiches (deliciously stuffed manaeesh). Located at 866 Bathurst St.

Join us for a hands-on all-ages Tatreez workshop led by Learn Palestine. Learn basic stitches, patterns, and the stories carried in each motif and make yourself a wearable item you can enjoy after the workshop.

Date: Saturday October 3, 2026 and Sunday, October 4, 2026
Venue: TIFF Lightbox, 350 King St W, Gallery
Time: 12:30 PM  (more details closer to the event)

This workshop is open to all skill levels and ages including children.  Participants will be seated together based on their skills and age groups (children/youth and adults). 

Spaces are limited.  Workshop fees $15 are for the purchase of materials. If costs are a barrier to participation please email us.

Please cancel your registration if you no longer can attend. Refunds may be issued if cancelled spots are filled by other participants. 

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 82 minutes | Directed by Jason Osder, William Lafi Youmans | Documentary | 2026 | USA | Canadian Premiere Q&A TO FOLLOW

Screening with "Last Shot"

Synopsis: In October 1985, Santa Ana, California was shaken by the assassination of Alex Odeh, a beloved teacher and community leader killed by a tripwire bomb in his office. Despite clear evidence and identified suspects, no one was ever held accountable. Who Killed Alex Odeh? reopens the story as a gripping cold-case murder mystery, following a renewed investigation in real time as long-buried leads resurface. Combining archival footage, firsthand testimony, and new reporting, the film — directed by a Jewish American and a Palestinian American — exposes the extremist forces behind the attack and the systems that allowed it to go unsolved, expanding beyond a single crime to examine the enduring rise of political extremism and the consequences of justice denied.

Award: 2026 Sundance Film Festival — Special Jury Award for Journalistic Excellence

Co-Presented by our allies at the Palestine Youth Movement — Toronto

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 18 minutes | Directed by Parham Rahimzadeh | Short Fiction | 2026 | Netherlands | Canadian Premiere

Screening with "Who Killed Alex Odeh?"

Synopsis: Musa, after inheriting his brother's camera, decides to develop the last film roll only to find the last picture his brother took in the middle of the explosion that killed him in Gaza. While confronting grief and the weight of his brother's legacy, Musa tries to carry his brother's work and submit the photos to a photo exhibition in the Netherlands amid double standards that guide the organizers' decision-making when it comes to Ukrainian artists versus Palestinians. 

Awards: International Film Festival Rotterdam, Go Short Film Festival, MOOOV, Rotterdam Arab Film Festival 

Website: Last Shot

Co-Presented by our allies at the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association

TIFF Gallery

TPFF Lammah: Community Storytellers Gathering (all ages) brings together the wisest members of our community to share their personal life stories from Palstine and the disapora, from the Nakba to Toronto organizing. 

Date: October 4, 2026, 3:00pm

Location: TIFF Gallery, ground floor

Join our esteemed community leaders in conversation and hear about their experiences as Palestinian witnesses to historical events and groundbreaking work that has strengthened the Palestinian culture and advocacy in Canada. 

This is a wonderful opportunity to hear these untold stories of important historical events. 

List of community storytellers will be shared shortly. 

Join us for the book launch of Nyla Matuk's latest book "Leila and Khaled". 

This novel confronts present-day love with the trauma of the Nakba to tell the story of a scholar returning for the first time to the occupied land her family was exiled from. 

The conversation will be moderated by journalist/culture writer Richie Assaly.

Date: Sunday, October 4, 2026
Venue: TIFF Lightbox, 350 King St W
Time: 3:00 PM  (more details closer to the event)

Book signing to follow event. Purchase books via this form for a special 20% discount. (Regular priced books available at TIFF store)

The event is copresented by Anansi Press and Another Story Bookshop.

Book Description: 

Leila, a Palestinian Canadian film scholar, joins a delegation of academics on her first journey to Occupied Palestine. What begins as an intellectual pilgrimage becomes an intimate, destabilizing return to an ancestral land her family was exiled from. There, she meets Khaled—a younger Palestinian man who pulls her into a mesmeric trance of desire, curiosity, and confrontation. Their brief, charged affair unfolds in a landscape shaped by rupture and resistance, each of them bearing different inheritances of the same loss. Leila and Khaled is a love story and a reckoning—a lyrical, unflinching meditation on belonging, memory, and the enduring wounds of colonialism.        

Bios: 

NYLA MATUK was born in Winnipeg and lives in Montreal. She is the author of two critically acclaimed books of poetry: Sumptuary Laws, shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award, and Stranger. She is also the editor of an anthology of poems, Resisting Canada.     

RICHIE ASSALY is a freelance journalist and culture writer in Toronto, writing about music, books, food and politics. He is also a juror for the Polaris Music Prize.

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 55 minutes | Directed by Ward Jaraisi | Documentary | 2026 | Occupied Palestine 1948 | Canadian Premiere |

Screening with "Another Day Shall Come"

Synopsis: "The Untold Intifada 1958" chronicles the first mass Palestinian uprising after the Nakba within the 1948 borders, which erupted in Nazareth and Um Al-Fahem in May 1958 — a pivotal but largely erased moment in Palestinian history. Through interviews with ten Palestinians who took part in the protest, now aged between 87 and 96, the film reconstructs the events of that moment, when Palestinians in Israel took to the streets after ten years of enforced silence under Israeli military rule. The uprising marked the first large-scale act of defiance and a collective rupture of fear, laying groundwork for an emerging shared political consciousness. Living testimonies are woven with rare archival material — documents, photographs, and media sources — bridging past and present. 

Website: riwayafilm.com

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 20 minutes | Directed by Aida Kaadan | | Documentary | 2026 | Palestine | Arabic with English Subtitles

Screening with "Untold Intifada 1958"

Followed by Panel: Combatting Nakba Denial — Sunday, October 4, 2026, 5:00 PM

Synopsis: As the genocide in Gaza unfolds, two million Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship and living in historical Palestine find themselves confined within an intensifying imposed silence; since October 2023, words have grown dangerous and gestures increasingly restrained. Within this reality, filmmaker Aida Kaadan chooses to resist silence by listening. Through an open call, she invited Palestinians across the 1948 borders to share their feelings via anonymous voice messages — recordings that tell the story of 76 years of suffocation, quiet mourning, alienation, and fear. The camera wanders through streets, landscapes, and ordinary spaces heavy with violence and erasure, revealing the little-known reality of Palestinians living within Israeli society, on the verge of disappearance. 

Selected: Hot Docs — World Premiere 

TIFF Gallery

Join TPFF after the screening of Untold Intifada 1958 for a timely discussion on the experiences of Nakba denial while Palestine is experiencing an ongoing genocide. 

Date: October 4, 2026, 5:00pm

Location: TIFF Gallery, ground floor

Nakba denial has been a long-standing concern for Palestinians in Canada - however, it became front page news after the Canadian Human Rights Museum first announced and then launched its Nakba Exhibit. From statements by the Canadian Heritage Minister to opinion pieces in the Globe and Mail, our community experienced a wave of attacks for simply sharing their experiences of a well-documented and ongoing catastrophe committed against the Indigenous people of Palestine.  Nakba denial has evolved to include the denial of the livestreamed genocide in Gaza, resulting in reprisals against advocates who condemn Israel's crimes in Gaza.  

Our esteemed speakers (to be shared shortly) will share their experiences with Nakba and genocide denial and how they overcame the dehumanization and erasure.  The discussion will offer examples, reflections, and tools for responding to denial—on screen, in classrooms, and in community spaces. 

Speakers

Rana Abdulla is a human rights advocate, artist who has spent decades supporting newcomers, preserving Palestinian heritage, and curating projects such as The Land Remembers. She is a member of the Palestinian Content Advisory Network that reviewed content for the Nakba exhibit at the Canadian Human Rights Museum. She is also the owner of the popular Yafa Cafe in Winnipeg. 

Raz Segal is a Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Endowed Professor in the Study of Modern Genocide at Stockton University. Prof Segal was among the first in his field to name Israel’s attack on Gaza “A Textbook Case of Genocide” in October 2023. He recently settled a claim for damages against the University of Minnesota after they withdrew a job offer over his use of the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s destruction of Gaza.  

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 96 minutes | Directed by Alaa AliAbdallah and Charlotte Knowles | Documentary | 2025 | United Kingdom, Palestine Q&A TO FOLLOW

Synopsis: Palestine Comedy Club follows five Palestinian stand-up comedians who write and tour a stand-up comedy show exploring the unlikely, often dark humour that surrounds the complexity of Palestinian identity. What starts as a blending of comic traditions to encourage honest and open reflections through the shared enjoyment of laughter becomes an existential imperative to share common humanity.

In Palestine, there are no comedy clubs or traditions of stand-up comedy. The country is divided by walls, fences, and checkpoints, creating cultural and quality-of-life disparities between towns. Consequently, developing a comedy show that can resonate with vastly different audiences across these divides poses a significant challenge. Nonetheless, comedians Alaa, Hanna, Diana, Khalil, Ebaa, along with their British director, Sam, man- age to navigate checkpoints and borders to perform in theatres across Palestine and Israel. Word of their performances spreads internationally, leading to an invitation to London for a series of gigs, tragically scheduled to commence in October 2023, just as war breaks out.

Palestine Comedy Club serves as an exploration of comedy and the power of laughter to unite, liberate, challenge and heal.

Website: palestinecomedyclub.com

Awards: SXSW London, Sheffield, Raindance, IDFA, DOC NYC, Nordic Palestinian FF, BAFTA, Bath FF, Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, Margate FF, Bristol Palestine FF, Tempo Documentary Festival, New Black Film Collective PictureEast, Reel Palestine, Baff Art FF, Palæstina FF, Solange FF, Chicago Palestine FF, Seoul Human Rights FF, San Francisco Indie FF, The Segal FF

Co-Presented by our allies at Regent Park Film Festival and MARSM Canada

TIFF Lightbox, Gallery

Join us as we commemorate 3rd anniversary of the genocide, the ongoing nakba in Palestine and southern Lebanon. 

Date: October 4, 2026, 6:45pm

As we celebrate the excellence of Palestine's and Lebanon's creatives, we also take a moment to pay tribute to our martyrs, our storytellers, our resisters, our rescuers and healers.  

Poetry and song will be shared in their honour as we gather in community to reflect, grieve, uplift and re-commit to ending Canadian complicity in the oppression of Palestinians and Lebanese. United we will persevere. 

Performance details to come. 

Image: Palestine - Lebanon, 1982, Kamal Boullata (1942 - 2019). The Palestine Poster Project Archives

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 98 minutes | Directed by Abdallah Al-Khatib | Fiction | 2026 | Algeria, France | Arabic with English Subtitles | Canadian Premiere

Screening with Gauze

Synopsis: During the siege of their city, a group of ordinary people struggle to survive amid hunger, snipers, and bombardments, while clinging to human connection, love, and small daily pleasures. Faced with impossible moral choices and deep psychological strain, their lives become inseparable from the siege itself.

Award: Berlin International Film Festival — Best First Feature 

TIFF Lightbox, Cinema 1

Film Details: 7.45 minutes | Directed by Noran Fikri Alezabi, Nicholas Arujah, Xinyue Ma, Yulin Yue, Xiaonan Zhou | Short Animation | 2025 | France | Toronto Premiere 

Screening with Chronicles From The Siege

Synopsis: 14-year-old Zain, a Palestinian swimming champion, faces war and man-made famine. He becomes the sole caregiver to his little brother. When aid drops into the sea, desperate for food, Zain is forced to swim — not for passion, but for survival.