The Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF) is pleased to invite you to an evening of conversation with Palestinian cinematic trailblazers – Annemarie Jacir, Ossama Bawardi and Mahdi Fleifel. These highly acclaimed filmmakers will share an insider’s perspective on directing and producing films in, and about, Palestine. This forum for discussion will provide the audience with an opportunity to engage with these filmmakers and gain a new perspective on Palestinian cinema and filmmaking. Annemarie Jacir is a Palestinian filmmaker, freelance editor, cinematographer, curator and poet. She has been working in independent cinema since 1994. Her short film, Like Twenty Impossibles, the first Palestinian short film to be selected in Competition as an official selection of the Cannes International Film Festival (Cinefondation), and has won more than 15 awards at international festivals. In 2007, Jacir shot the first feature film by a Palestinian woman director, Salt of this Sea, the story of a refugee returning home. The film, released in 2008, was Palestine’s submission to the 81st Academy Awards in the Foreign Language Film category. The sold-out screening of the film opened the first annual TPFF. Her new feature film When I Saw You is set to debut at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Ossama Bawardi is an independent producer based in Palestine and Jordan. Bawardi has been involved in various Palestinian productions including Paradise Now, Be Quiet and Waiting for Salah Al Din. Bawardi was the production manager of Salt of this Sea. He also works as a sound technician (credits include This is my Picture When I was Dead and A Boy, A Wall, and a Donkey). He is line producer of No Laughing Matter as well as numerous other films both fiction and documentary. He has been a guest participant of the Tribeca All Access Program in New York, where his latest project, When I Saw You by Annemarie Jacir was selected. Bawardi has also directed and produced the short film, Haneen,which will be screened at this year’s TPFF. Mahdi Fleifel is a director, writer and producer. He was born in Dubai and raised in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon where several of his films are set. He has directed numerous short films including Shadi in the Beautiful Well, Hamoudi & Emil and Arafat & I. He has won several awards at international festivals including the Best Foreign Short Award at the New York International Film Festival for Arafat & I. Fleifel also attended the second TPFF with this film.. His first feature documentary, A World Not Ours, is set to debut at this year’s TIFF. For more information on Jacir, Bawardi and Fleifel and other related films at TIFF, please visit: http://bit.ly/arabfilms.
