Although we'll miss hosting you at our annual Sahtain! Palestinian Brunch, we're so thrilled to present a live chat with the one and only, Mirna Bamieh. The Palestinian artist and chef is the founder of Palestine Hosting Society, a live art project that explores traditional food culture in Palestine especially those that are on the verge of disappearing.

The project brings these dishes back to life over dinner tables, talks, walks, and various interventions.

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As we witness in TPFF’s film The Journey of the Others, many artists and artistic productions representing Palestinian narratives are facing cancellations and other silencing tactics across the West. The attacks take various forms from rescinding awards, venue cancellations, withdrawal of funding, smear campaigns and interference with the proposed work.

As Ontario is poised to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-semitism - a definition that includes criticism of Israel in its examples of anti-semitism - will arts organizations, funders and venues be fearful of supporting art related to Palestine? This panel will explore these implications and other attempts to suppress Palestinian arts and culture, and artists who support Palestinian human rights. It will further explore why the arts are increasingly becoming a focal point of attack and creative strategies to stave off attempts to erase Palestinians in this sector.

Panellists:

Jamelie Hassan, multidisciplinary artist, lecturer, writer and independent curator

Toleen Touq, Artistic Director of the South Asian Visual Arts Centre

Azeezah Kanji, legal scholar, writer and Director of Programming at the Noor Cultural Centre.

Corey Balsam, National Coordinator of Independent Jewish Voices

Moderator: Reem Bahdi, professor at the University of Windsor, Faculty of Law

Complementary to this panel are four sessions scheduled throughout the festival with artists who are using their crafts to fight the erasure of Palestinian cultural and traditions through their modern day revivals. Please join our sessions with artist Samar Hejazi (embroidery), fashion designer Rami Kashou, artist Mirna Bamieh (food) and Samaa Wakeem w/ Mohammed Samahneh (dance).

Panellists:

Jamelie Hassan is a visual artist and activist based in London, Ontario. Since the 1970's, she has exhibited widely in Canada and internationally. She is also active as a lecturer, writer and independent curator. In 2001 she was awarded the Governor General’s Award in Visual Arts. In 1993 she received the “Canada 125 ” Medal for outstanding community service. Her commitment to community and public space has involved highly diverse sites. She has served as a member of advisory panels and art juries for the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts and she served as a member on the advisory committee for the “Minister’s Forum on Culture & Diversity”.

Toleen Touq, Artistic Director at SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Centre) is a curator, cultural producer and writer. Previously based out of Amman, Jordan, she co-founded “Spring Sessions” an annual learning residency program for artists, scholars and cultural practitioners. She also initiated “The River Has Two Banks” a multi-disciplinary platform that addresses the historical, political and mobility commonalities between Jordan and Palestine. Her writings have been published with Ibraaz, A Prior,Manifesta Journal and others, and she is the recipient of numerous international fellowships.

Azeezah Kanji is a legal academic and writer. She received her JD from University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law, and Masters of Law specializing in Islamic Law from the SOAS, University of London. Azeezah’s work focuses on issues relating to racism, law, and social justice. Her writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, National Post, Ottawa Citizen, OpenDemocracy, and various academic anthologies and journals.

Corey Balsam is a writer, activist and National Coordinator of Independent Jewish Voices Canada. He has a master’s in Sociology and Equity Studies in Education from OISE/University of Toronto and is the co-author of a recently published journal article on the impacts of Palestinian political detention on the children of detainees. Corey spent nearly four years living in Ramallah, where he worked for Oxfam and at Birzeit University, and co-founded the Capoeira Freedom Collective - Palestine. ijvcanada.org

Reem Bahdi, is an author, researcher, and human rights expert, with particular expertise in the human rights of Arabs and Muslims in Canada. As Canada’s first tenured Palestinian-Canadian law professor, she is an associate professor at Windsor Law and a visiting professor at Birzeit University. She helped introduce a mandatory access to justice course at Windsor Law in 2003 and served as the law school’s Associate Dean 2012-2015. She was the co-Director of KARAMAH, The Project on Judicial Independence and Human Dignity; and Editor-in-Chief of the Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice. She has served as an expert witness, in legal proceedings involving Canadian-Muslim rights and national security.

Co-presented by Embassy Cultural House

Designer Rami Kashou
Live Studio Visit

Toronto Palestine Film Festival visits Palestinian fashion designer Rami Kashou in his New York studio - a rare glimpse into the world of high fashion. We will chat with Rami about his designs, and the stories they tell with his use of Palestinian textile, embroidery and shapes. From gowns to masks, Rami’s creations reinterpret Palestine’s traditional designs for a modern time.

Hailing from Ramallah, Rami Kashou’s groundbreaking feminine designs attract many high profile celebrities to his New York fashion week runway shows. He was also a fan favourite as the runner-up in season 4 of Bravo’s Project Runway and again on Project Runway: All Stars. Last year, his designs were featured at an exhibition celebrating Palestinian embroidery at the United Nations.

Zaina Arafat moderated by George Abraham

Toronto Palestine Film Festival starts with an author talk and book launch with the critically-acclaimed Palestinian writer Zaina Arafat and her debut novel “You Exist too Much” moderated by poet George Abraham.

This captivating coming of age story, that has topped must-read lists, follows a young queer Palestinian-American woman as she moves between her life in the Middle East and the US, from youth to adulthood and her longing for love and a place to call home.

Zaina Arafat is an LGBTQ Arab/Muslim-American fiction and nonfiction writer. She is the author of the novel, You Exist Too Much, which was selected as a most anticipated book for 2020 by O, The Oprah Magazine, Good Morning America, Vogue, Elle and Harper's Bazaar. Her stories and essays have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Granta, The Believer, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Christian Science Monitor, BuzzFeed, VICE, Guernica, Literary Hub and NPR. In recognition of her work, she was awarded the Arab Women/Migrants from the Middle East fellowship at Jack Jones Literary Arts. She holds an M.A. in international affairs from Columbia University and an M.F.A. from Iowa. She lives in Brooklyn and is currently at work on a collection of essays.

George Abraham is the author of Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020), and the chapbooks: the specimen’s apology (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019) and al youm (TAR, 2017).

You Exist Too Much

On a hot day in Bethlehem, a twelve-year-old Palestinian American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother’s response only intensifies a sense of shame: “You exist too much,” she tells her daughter.

Told in vignettes that flash between the United States and the Middle East—from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine—Zaina Arafat’s debut novel traces her protagonist’s progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters and obsessions with other people. Her desire to thwart her own destructive impulses will eventually lead her to The Ledge, an unconventional treatment center that identifies her affliction as “love addiction.” In this strange, enclosed society she will start to consider the unnerving similarities between her own internal traumas and divisions and those of the places that have formed her.

Opening up the fantasies and desires of one young woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities, You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings—for love and a place to call home.

To purchase the book
Visit Another Story Bookshop

Some of the raving reviews

"[A] provocative and seductive debut . . . Novels like these don't exist enough." ―O, The Oprah Magazine, 1 of 31 LGBTQ Books That'll Change the Literary Landscape This Year

"This story about love, identity, gender and family is brilliantly written and questions the effects of maternal love." ―Good Morning America, 25 Novels You'll Want to Read this Summer

"For anyone who’s ever felt their body or identity takes up too much space, this deeply affecting story of doubt and and love is a gut-punch and a solace." ―ELLE, The 30 Most Anticipated New Books of Summer

“You exist too much,” a young Palestinian-American girl’s mother tells her, and the rest of the novel functions as a repudiation of that phrase."―VOGUE, 7 New Books to Read While You’re Stuck at Home This June

"You Exist Too Much tells the story of a bisexual Palestinian-American girl whose romantic obsessions and self-destructive impulses lead her to an unconventional treatment center called The Ledge, where she must reckon with the traumas that she has inherited from the places and people who raised her." ―Harper's Bazaar, 14 LGBTQ Books to Look For in 2020

"The unnamed protagonist of Zaina Arafat’s debut novel, a bisexual Palestinian-American DJ with literary ambitions, finds herself caught between several poles: her two countries; virtue and desire; family and personal ambition." ―TIME, 45 New Books You Need to Read This Summer

Awards

Most anticipated book for 2020 by O, The Oprah Magazine, Good Morning America, Vogue, Elle and Harper's Bazaa

zainaarafat.com
gabrahampoet.com

Co-presented by Another Story Bookshop