Palestine Cinema day Screening and Discussion

As part of Palestine Cinema Days, organised by Filmlab Palestine, Old Palesteine House invites you to an evening of film, food, and collective discussion. We will be screening two films, The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing and The Dream (Al-Manam), followed by an open conversation bringing the films into dialogue with one another. The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing (2024) is a 17-minute film essay by Greek-Lebanese-Palestinian filmmaker Theo Panagopoulos. The film revisits archival footage of Palestinian wildflowers, recorded by a Scottish missionary in the 1930s and 1940s. Through reclaiming and reframing these images, Panagopoulos confronts the colonial gaze through which Palestine was recorded, questioning the erasure of Palestinian presence and the relationship between land, memory and representation. The Dream (Al-Manam) (1987) is a 45-minute documentary by Syrian filmmaker Mohamad Malas, filmed in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in 1980. Malas invites people to recount their dreams, allowing memory, lived experience and imagination to move between one another. The film offers an intimate encounter with lives too often represented solely through displacement and suffering. At a time when Palestinian life is relentlessly documented through images of violence and destruction, we are interested in what cinema can make possible beyond witnessing. How might film challenge what has been made to seem inevitable, recover histories that have been obscured, and help us imagine otherwise? Remembering the future means considering how the past remains present in struggles for liberation, and how imagining a different future can inform what we do now. Imagination is not separate from political reality, but part of the work of changing it. Following the screenings, we will come together to reflect on both films, the connections and tensions between them, and what they might open up for thinking about cinema, memory and a liberated Palestine. The discussion will be open and collective, shaped by the films and those who join us. About Palestine Cinema Days Founded in 2014 and organised by Filmlab Palestine, Palestine Cinema Days is an annual festival dedicated to celebrating and supporting Palestinian cinema, filmmakers and film culture. Monday 2 November, 7–9:30pm Old Palesteine House, Brighton Free entry, but advance RSVP is essential. Spaces are limited and no tickets will be available on the door.