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The screening of the film will be followed by discussions with the film director Yasmine Perni.
About the Film
In 1948, tens of thousands of Palestinian villagers were driven from their homes in what was officially dubbed “Operation Broom”, intended to literally sweep tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in the fertile hills and valleys of the Galilee, and make way for settlers in the newly created state of Israel.
Elias Chacour, now the Archbishop of the Galilee, was just a little boy when Israeli troops ordered his family out of the Christian village of Kifr Bir’am. He left the village with a blanket on his shoulder, walking to his new home, a cave.
Today Kifr Bir’am is an Israeli national park, the houses of the village are crumbling, the church is abandoned.
After the Galilee came the expropriation of the West Bank in 1967, the settlements, the wall. Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, is now hemmed in by the wall, cut off from Jerusalem, and robbed of much of its agricultural land.
All too often media coverage of the conflict in Palestine has framed it as a fight between Muslims and Jews, largely ignoring the fact that Palestine was the birthplace of Christianity, that Palestinians are both Muslims and Christians, and that Palestinian Christians have played a critical role in their land’s history and the struggle to maintain its identity.
From 1948 up to today, through wars and uprisings, leading Palestinian Christians, including the late President of Beir Zeit University Gabi Baramki, Palestinian leader Hanan Ashrawi, civil society activist Ghassan Andoni, Patriarch Emeritus Michel Sabbah and others recount the unwavering and sometimes desperate struggle of all Palestinians to resist Israel’s occupation and stay on their land.
About the Filmmaker
Yasmine Perni moved from her native Italy to the Middle East when she was 13 years old, living in Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan and Jerusalem. A graduate of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, she has worked as a journalist, photographer, television producer and mother. She speaks Italian, English, Swedish and Arabic.
Perni went into documentary filmmaking inspired by the Christians of Palestine, whose story of perseverance and pride has been largely obscured by the headlines. It was her first experience at producing and writing a documentary, and she conducted extensive research, combed through official Palestinian. Israel and United Nations film archives, and traveled the length and breadth of historic Palestine.
Married and with three children, she recently return to live in Italy, where she continues to pursue her professional interests and frequently travels back to the Middle East.