Queer Cinema for Palestine Film Festival
Join us at Red Space, Droog’s new multimedia film theatre, for a powerful evening of Queer Cinema for Palestine; a program that brings together queer narratives and collective reflection in solidarity with Palestinian liberation.
Programma 17 Juni 2025
Screening Starts: 19:00
Screening Ends: 20:30
Film Program
Abgad Hawaz, Robin Riad, 1min, Canada (2024)
Audio: Arabic, English
Subtitles: N/A
Robin Riad’s short hand-drawn analogue film ostensibly teaches the pronunciation of the Arabic Alphabet in 28 easy steps. In actuality, the hand-drawn letters were printed using a laser jet printer onto the optical soundtrack of 16mm film, and what you hear in the film is the projector reading the letters, and interpreting them into sound. Riad uses humour to play with and sit with her mother tongue, offering a ‘false’ lesson in pronunciation. A response to a digital form of anti-Arab hate that Riad witnessed online coming out of the genocide in Gaza, Abgad Hawaz is a way for her to hold close to her language, culture, and roots. (Written by Tara Hakim for TQFF)
Out of Gaza, Seza Tiyara Selen, Jannis Osterburg, 9min, Germany (2025)
Audio: German, Arabic
Subtitles: English
A young Palestinian woman wants to flee from Gaza with her friends, hoping to find freedom in the West. As a talented engineer she makes escape possible, but doubts arise if it is the right decision to leave. When they cross the wall, they encounter a world they did not expect.
Blood Like Water, Dima Hamdan, 14min, Palestine (2023)
Audio: Arabic
Subtitles: English
Shadi embarks on a secret adventure, and accidentally drags his family into a trap where they only have two choices; either collaborate with the Israeli occupation, or be shamed and humiliated by their own people. Based on true stories.
a tangled web drowning in honey, Tara Hakim & Hannah Hull, 9min, Canada (2023)
Audio: English
Subtitles: English
a tangled web drowning in honey is an experiential and textural short film that invites viewers into the inner workings of a mind to ponder the ways in which we love and unlove ourselves.
Aliens in Beirut, Raghed Charabaty, 16min, Lebanon, Canada (2025)
Audio: Arabic, English
Subtitles: English
Aliens in Beirut blurs doc and fiction, exploring alienation and desire at home through scripted improv, wildlife cinematography and visual experimentation. Charabaty (who also stars in the film) reimagines events from their life leading up to the fateful 2020 Beirut Port Explosion. Returning to Beirut from Toronto, desperately in search of roots, Amir falls for a stranger by the sea. In the end, the explosion cares for nobody – leaving behind traces of unerasable desire.
Palcorecore, Dana Dawud, 8min, Internet footage from Palestine (2023)
Audio: Arabic and English
Subtitles: English
Dana Dawud’s Palcorecore (Palestine) is a hypnotic fusion of dance, archival footage, and internet-circulated videos that collapse past and present into a visceral portrait of Palestinian life. Opening with The Lovers Songs Band and excerpts from Jenin, Jenin (2003), the film assembles fleeting yet powerful images: flag-waving horseback riders, families at the beach, teenagers dancing in flames, and acts of resistance against occupation. Dawud’s deadpan narration—“I witness you witness me, we are martyrs together”—pulls the viewer into a shared act of witnessing. Through rhythmic disorder and movement, the film captures the resilience, rebellion, and everyday joys of Palestinian existence, focusing particularly on youth and women in their defiant assertion of life.
I never promised you a Jasmine Garden, Teyama AlKamli, 20min, Canada (2023)
Audio: Arabic, English
Subtitles: English
Tara, a queer Palestinian woman in her late 20s, attempts to suppress her internal emotional turbulence during a phone call with her best friend Sarab, with whom she is in love.
Don’t take my joy away, Omar Gabriel, 7min, Lebanon (2024)
Audio: Arabic
Subtitles: English
Set in Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, two friends revel in the small joys of life until violence suddenly disrupts their world. Forced to flee, they embark on a dangerous journey of survival, confronting fear, chaos, and the stark realities around them. Along the way, they must choose between remaining in the shadows or seeking the light.
