Ramallah-based filmmaker Laila Abbas, director of “Thank You for Banking With Us,” will be in Minnesota opening night for a post-screening discussion.
Films represent people from many corners of the Arab world: Palestinians, Lebanese, Tunisians, Egyptians, Mauritanians, Sudanese, Yemenis, Iraqis and more.
In this scene from “A State of Passion,” Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah rushes an injured person to the hospital in October 2023. (Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi)
The documentary feature “A State of Passion” captures the humanitarian crisis in Gaza through the eyes of British-Palestinian plastic reconstructive surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah.
Lebanese filmmakers Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi take viewers into Abu-Sittah’s world.
Khalidi got to know Abu-Sittah through working in public health at Palestinian camps in Lebanon, and she and Mansour reached out to him to ask if they could make the documentary.
The film starts with Abu-Sittah’s return to Amman, Jordan, after a 43-day humanitarian trip to Gaza in October 2023. Four months later he met with the International Criminal Court at The Hague in Amsterdam to share photos of the wounded he cared for in Gaza.
Abu-Sittah has volunteered in war zones across Gaza since the late 1980s. He was born a refugee. He also founded the Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund, providing medical care to children of Gaza and Lebanon.
“We made this film not as a piece of art, but as a tool to be used to shake people into action,” Mansour said.
The film also includes audio messages he sent to his two friends while in Gaza.
Documentary film is one way to reach people. Emmy-nominated Palestinian American filmmaker and actress Cherien Dabis connects with viewers in a different way.
Her feature film “All That’s Left of You” tells the story of a multigenerational Palestinian family from 1948 to 2022.
“All That’s Left of You” director Cherien Dabis advocates for more Arab American representation on screen. (Stephanie Diani)
For Palestinians, 1948 references “the Nakba,” the Arabic term meaning catastrophe, when Palestinians were forcibly displaced from their homeland by the creation of Israel.
