MASTERCLASS
Masterclass: Colonial Image Worlds and the Aesthetics of Return to Palestine
In this master class, Palestinian filmmaker and teacher, Razan AlSalah discusses the material aesthetics of appearance and disappearance of indigenous bodies, stories, histories and places in colonial image worlds: how her films attempt to trespass and rupture the colonial image that functions itself as a border, as a wall, and a site of impossible yet eternal return to Palestine.
Lecturer: Razan AlSalah
Length: 2h
Date: 18/08 às 4pm
Venue: CCBB/RJ
Razan AlSalah is a Palestinian artist and teacher, based in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal, who investigates the material aesthetics of dis/appearance of places and people in colonial image worlds. Her work has shown at community-based and international film festivals & galleries including Art of the Real, Prismatic Ground, RIDM, HotDocs, Yebisu, Melbourne, Glasgow and Beirut International, Sharjah Film Forum, IZK Institute for Contemporary Art and Sursock Museum. AlSalah co-directs the Feminist Media Studio with Krista Lynes and teaches film and media arts at the Communication Studies department at Concordia University.
ROUNDTABLES
ROUNDTABLE 1 | Curatorial roundtable
How does one plan a curatorial process when our bodies can no longer tolerate some of the images we encounter? In this roundtable on the curatorship of the festival, beyond discussing the selection of films, we aim to spark a debate – or perhaps a manifesto – on the concept of curatorship as “carefulness.” We will explore questions about violent images versus violence of the images, the role of film festivals amidst a hyper-visible genocide, and the simultaneous artistic and pedagogical functions of films when they are presented to bodies that can be affected by these images.
Lecturers: Alia Ayman, Analu Bambirra e Carol Almeida
Length: 1h30
Date: 17/08, 4pm
Venue: CCBB/RJ
Alia Ayman is a film curator, maker and scholar based between Cairo and New York City. She is the co-founder of Zawya Cinema in Cairo and has contributed to the programs of Berlinale Forum, IDFA, BlackStar Film Festival, Flaherty NYC, Images Festival and the Arab Women Film Festival in Brazil among others. She holds a PhD in anthropology, culture and media from New York University.
Analu Bambirira holds a B.A. in Cinema and Audiovisual from Centro Universitário UNA in Belo Horizonte/MG. A partner at Partisane Filmes since 2018, she worked as an assistant producer at Anavilhana from 2014 to 2021, and a project consultant at the same company from 2021 to 2022. Currently, Analu works on the project management at Ocean Films. Among the project she has collaborated, there are “Where I Grow Old” (Marilia Rocha), “Faraway Song” (Clarissa Campolina), “Kevin” (Joana Oliveira), “Brief Story of the Green Planet” (Santiago Loza), “Amazon, the New Minamata?” (Jorge Bodanzky) and “At this Moment, in the Nation’s Sky” (Sandra Kogut). Analu is a curator and a producer of the Arab Women’s Film Festival in Brazil.
Carol Almeida is a professor, researcher and film curator. Holds a PhD from the Postgraduate Program in Communication at UFPE, with research focused on contemporary Brazilian cinema. She is part of the curatorial team of Festival Olhar de Cinema/Curitiba, of the Arab Women’s Film Festival, Mostra Que Desejo, besides working at the curatorial team in festivals such as Recifest, Recife queer film festival, Queer film festival in Fortaleza, and, more recently, in Forumdoc selection team. She conducts lectures on curatorship, contemporary Brazilian cinema, and women’s representation in cinema. Member at Socine (Brazilian Society of Film Studies).
ROUNDTABLE 2 | “Unerasing” Palestinian archives
“Unerasing” Palestinian archives: a debate on how Palestine is also historically attacked in its memory. Based on films that try, in their own way, to archive this same erasure, the roundtable will discuss images that have already been shown at previous editions of the Arab Women’s Film Festival in Brazil, such as the feature film Kings & Extras, by Azza El-Hassan, and others that will be shown this year at the festival, such as the title Perpetual Recurrences, by Reem Shilleh.
Lecturers: Carol Almeida and Maria Ganem
Length: 1h30
Date: 21/08, 4pm
Venue: CCBB/RJ
Carol Almeida is a professor, researcher and film curator. Holds a PhD from the Postgraduate Program in Communication at UFPE, with research focused on contemporary Brazilian cinema. She is part of the curatorial team of Festival Olhar de Cinema/Curitiba, of the Arab Women’s Film Festival, Mostra Que Desejo, besides working at the curatorial team in festivals such as Recifest, Recife queer film festival, Queer film festival in Fortaleza, and, more recently, in Forumdoc selection team. She conducts workshops on curatorship, contemporary Brazilian cinema, and women’s representation in cinema. Member at Socine (Brazilian Society of Film Studies).
Maria Ganem Müller is a journalist, screenwriter and a professor. Since 2008, she has been developing research on safeguarding, diffusion and editing of audiovisual archives, focusing on amateur and family films and on the representation of women in the archives from the 20th century. She published a book about editing films and made three short films which were screened in international film festivals. In 2024, she got a post-doctorate degree from the Postgraduate Program in History, Politics and Cultural Properties at CPDOC (FGV). She holds a PhD degree on Audiovisual from the Fine Arts Department at Lisboa University (FbaUL) and a Master’s degree on Cinema Studies from the University of Montreal (UdeM). She works as a screenwriter and researcher for Brazilian films and series. She holds a Bachelor degree in Social Communications at PUC-Rio.
ROUNDTABLE 3 | The normalized war: the daily life in Palestine and the mediatization of war
Which role do the media narratives play in the normalization of violence in Palestine? How can we reflect on what is and isn’t represented? Based on the genocide in Gaza since October 2023, the roundtable proposes to debate the challenges of representations about and of Palestine. To this purpose, the lived experiences of the conflicts will be discussed alongside the historical processes in the region. And, in that way, to discuss the need for spaces in the media to include the silencing of the existence of daily violence beyond the moments of major bombings.
Lecturers: Giovanna Monteiro-Macedo and Vinícius Pedreira Barbosa da Silva
Length: 1h30
Date: 24/08, 4pm
Venue: CCBB/RJ
Giovanna Monteiro-Macedo is a doctoral candidate on the Social and Political Studies Institute at Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (IESP-UERJ), holds a Master’s degree from the same institution, and a B.A’s degree with honours on International Affairs from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). In 2023, she received the best thesis award at PPGS/IESP-UERJ and was nominated for the National Thesis and Dissertations Competition. She is a researcher at the groups BONDE and CASA, and a Scientific Diffusion Assistant at DADOS – Social Sciences Journal.
Vinícius Pedreira Barbosa da Silva holds a PhD degree in Communication on the PPGCOM Postgraduate Program from the Communication Department of the Universidade de Brasília (UnB). He was a researcher visitor at City, University of London, through the PDSE/Capes program. He holds a Master degree in Communication from the PPGCOM Postgraduate Program from UnB, is a journalist through the same institution. Associate professor at the Instituto Brasileiro de Ensino, Desenvolvimento e Pesquisa (IDP), he also works as a collaborator professor at UniCeub and at UnB. His research topics encompass diverse mediatic narratives, representations, conflicts, journalism and International Affairs.
FILM DISCUSSIONS
17/08 – Saturday
CCBB/RJ
6pm – Tell Your Tale, Little Bird, by Arab Loutfi (Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, 90′)
Film discussion (with Badra El Cheikh, Juliana Muniz)
Rating: NC-17 (Adults Only)
18/08 – Sunday
CCBB/RJ
2pm – Khartoum Offside, by Marwa Zein (Sudan, Norway, Denmark, France, 76′)
Film discussion (Alexandre dos Santos)
Rating: G (General Audiences)
20/08 – Tuesday
Cine Arte UFF / Niterói
7pm – Short film screening (55′): Your Father was Born 100 Years old, and so was the Nakba, by Razan AlSalah (Palestine, 7′); Canada Park, by Razan AlSalah (Canada, Palestine, 8′); A Stone’s Throw, by Razan AlSalah (Canada, Palestine, Lebanon, 40′)
Film discussion (live broadcast with guest Razan AlSalah) – Consecutive translation into Portuguese – Closed caption in Portuguese and Brazilian sign language
Rating: PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)
21/08 – Wednesday
FEBF / UERJ / Duque de Caxias
7pm – The Feeling of Being Watched, by Assia Boundaoui (United States, 87′)
Film discussion (Gyssele Mendes)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
22/08 – Thursday
CCBB/RJ
4:30pm – Session of short films (48′): Electrical Gaza, by Rosalind Nashashibi (United Kingdom, 18′); Mahdi Amel – The Colonial Mode of Production, by Mary Jirmanus Saba (14′); Vibrations from Gaza, by Rehab Nazzal (Palestine, Canada, 16′)
Film discussion (Analu Bambirra, Carol Almeida)
Audio Description in Portuguese, Closed Caption in portuguese and Brazilian Sign Language
Rating: R (Restricted)
23/08 – Friday
GOMEIA GALPÃO CRIATIVO / Duque de Caxias
7:30pm – Short film screening (55′): Your Father was Born 100 Years old, and so was the Nakba, by Razan AlSalah (Palestine, 7′); Canada Park, by Razan AlSalah (Canada, Palestine, 8′); A Stone’s Throw, by Razan AlSalah (Canada, Palestine, Lebanon, 40′)
Film discussion (live broadcast with guest Razan AlSalah) – Consecutive translation into Portuguese – Closed caption in Portuguese and Brazilian sign language
Rating: PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)
24/08 – Saturday
CCBB/RJ
6pm – Short film screening (81′): Capital, by Basma Alsharif (Egypt, Germany, Italy, 17′); The Secret Garden, by Nour Ouayda (Lebanon, 27′); To Remain in the No Longer, by Joyce Joumaa (Canada, Lebanon, 37′)
Film discussion (Nour Ouayda) – Closed caption in Portuguese and Brazilian sign language
Rating: PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)
24/08 – Saturday
GOMEIA GALPÃO CRIATIVO / Duque de Caxias
7:30pm – Session of short films (48′): Electrical Gaza, by Rosalind Nashashibi (United Kingdom, 18′); Mahdi Amel – The Colonial Mode of Production, by Mary Jirmanus Saba (14′); Vibrations from Gaza, by Rehab Nazzal (Palestine, Canada, 16′)
Film discussion (Daniele Abilas) – Closed Caption in portuguese
Rating: R (Restricted)
