Dialogue with the Diaspora webinar series:
Palestine’s refugee diaspora on film: can watching help?

Webinar at 8 pm ET, Thursday, Nov 18, 2021

In Netflix’s recent anthology of Palestinian films, it was heartening to see documentaries by Mai Masri and Mahdi Fleifel. Films focusing on Palestinian refugees outside the Occupied Territories aren’t common.  Even then, their complex situation is only ever partly, and selectively illuminated. For Canadians who do watch, might passive viewing ever shift to more deeper awareness? Is it too hopeful to think these stories could move viewers to more active forms of support? These are just some of the questions under consideration in CEPAL’s first “Dialogue with the Diaspora.”

Panelists who will bring their experience to the discussion include:
Robert Allison, Communications Director, Hamilton Voices of Palestine Film Screenings
Dania Majid, Programmer and Media Relations, Toronto Palestine Film Festival
Thomas Morgan, Producer-director of Soufra, and other films
Henry Zaccak, Moderator, President, Canadian-Palestinian Education Exchange

For a common starting point, we invite you to view beforehand the documentary film Soufra. Click here to register for the webinar, and to receive a link to our sponsored viewing platform.* Soufra follows a group of women entrepreneurs at Burj al Barajneh camp in south Beirut. For their small business venture to thrive, the various partners must put aside that they are Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi  or Lebanese. In the face of huge obstacles, they show unrelenting belief in each other, and their small business begins to take root. But the real test comes next, when they attempt to add on a food truck service which could carry business outside of their camp.  (Click here for Soufra trailer.)

View Soufra on-line  
(viewing time: 70 minutes)
until December 1.

*There is a free viewing option,
thanks to the generous sponsorship
of PSN Edmonton and Just Peace Advocates.