For the full Cultural Centre programme of events (March-June) please click here
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10 June 2019
Lecture: Oral History and Radical Future
Time and Location: at the Foundation's Building in Al-Tira, Ramallah, at 6:00 p.m.
This lecture explores the subject of courage, resilience, resistance as read through a selection of contemporary artists working with video and film in Palestine and the continent now known as Australia, examining the intimate relationship that landscapes share with past and present coloniality and conflict. The title, “Oral Histories and ‘Radical’ Futures,” speaks to the decolonising of the radical imagination by a radical futurity through selected video works - attentive to the past as it scrutinises the present, but also generously thinking of what is beyond. There is an urgency to revisit expansive geographies, liberatory lyrics, decolonial gestures, subjects of caring inquiry in works that continue to be both nourishing and sustaining for those who witness them.
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12 June 2019
Film Screening: Children of Heaven (1997)
Time and Location: at the Foundation's Building in Al-Tira, Ramallah, at 6:00 p.m.
90 mins| +13, Persian, with Arabic subtitles| Iran
Director: Majid Majidi
This screening is open to the family, with the recommended age of children being 13 and older.Shot mostly in the style of a documentary and featuring a cast of young, non-professional actors, Children of Heaven tells the deceptively simple story of a brother and sister who suddenly find themselves mulling a moreadult, philosophical quandary: material possession versus spiritual wealth.
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20 June 2019
Flim Screening: Ivan’s Childhood (1962)
Time and Location: at the Foundation's Building in Al-Tira, Ramallah, at 6:00 p.m.
94 mins|+16, Russian, with Arabic subtitles| Soviet Union
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky’s debut feature, Ivan’s Childhood poetically explores the effect of war on children. Set in the midst of war-torn Russia during World War II, 12-year-old Ivan is placed in a German prison camp after Nazi invaders destroy his village and kill his family. The boy manages to escape and makes his way back to Russia, finding himself in the care of Captain Kholin, who urges Ivan to consider military school. Instead, Ivan convinces the captain to allow him to return to Germany and act as a spy, in a bid to avenge the death of his family members.
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20 June 2019
“An invitation to attend a joke in a circus"- Asma'a Azaizeh and Haya Zaatre
Time and Location: at the Foundation's Building in Al-Tira, Ramallah, at 8:00 p.m.
Poet Asma’a Azaizeh and artist Haya Zaatry present a performance combining poetry with vocal and instrumental accompaniment. Poems will be performed from Azaizeh’s latest collection, touching on the privileges of those who live, like her, outside the war; on the need for death; on the normal state of evil.
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22 June 2019
Short films screening
Time and Location: at the Foundation's Building in Al-Tira, Ramallah, at 6:00 p.m.
In 2017, the Public Programme, A. M. Qattan Foundation invited filmmakers and artists to submit proposals for short fiction films that relate to the theme of ‘Zoo’ and its limitless connotations, allegories and projections, notwithstanding the unfold the relationship between humans and animals.
This open call was part of ‘Fiction’ one of the projects of the Public Programme, that promotes the production of short fiction films on Palestine contra to the common notion of documentary.
Noor Abu Arafeh and Rama Mari’ were commissioned to produce two films within the project.
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24 June 2019
Concert: Qessetna"Our Story”
Time and Location: at the Foundation’s Building in Al-Tira, Ramallah, on Monday 24.6.2019 at 8:00 p.m.
In Our Story, a musical composed entirely by Habib Shehadeh Hanna, the composer holds a conversation with various performers representing different types of dance genres, including tango, waltz, solo and improvisational. Our Story highlights modernism in the musical’s composition and performance with an uplifting dialogue between international dance cultures.
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26 June 2019
Film Screening: I Was Born, But (1932)
Time and Location: at the Foundation's Building in Al-Tira, Ramallah, at 6:00 p.m.
100 min| +16, Japanese Intertitles with Arabic Subtitles (mostly silent)| Japan
Director: Yasujirō Ozu.
One of the few films to have survived from Japan’s silent era, and also one of Yasujirō Ozu’s most beloved works, I Was Born, but... is a humourous portrait of one family’s financial and psychological troubles. Two young brothers battle school bullies and obnoxious teachers as part of their daily, tormented ritual; their lives, however, come to a screeching halt when they suddenly comprehend their father’s lower social status.
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27 June 2019
Book Launch - Companions in Conflict
Time and Location: at 6:00 P.M. at the Foundation’s building in Al-Tira, Ramallah.
The event will be moderated by Reema Hamami, With the presence of writer Penny Johnson.
In August of 2016, Israeli police officers arrested a Palestinian donkey in the Jordan Valley. The charge? Not having the correct paperwork.
It’s an image as sad (and strangely common) as it is symbolic: No creature great or small is free from the absurdities of the Occupied Territories.
“Companions in Conflict” is a surprising investigation into the deeply intertwined lives of the region’s human and animal populations: From camel beauty contests, to a herd of “illegal” Palestinian cows hunted down by Israeli soldiers; from a hyena in a wolf pack that becomes a symbol of Middle East peace, to the tragic story of the now-taxidermied inhabitants of the West Bank’s only zoo–who were frightened to death by Israeli explosive devices.
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30 June 2019
The Launching of Faraj Suleiman's Album
Time and Location: at the Foundation's Building in Al-Tira, Ramallah, at 8:00 p.m.
Faraj Suleiman is a Palestinian composer & pianist, in 2018 he Sang “Issa Jay”; A song that his friend, Amer Hlehel, had written and he performed it as a sort of a joke at first. Later, it turned into a serious project, a music album that includes 10 songs in which he, Faraj composed.