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The Joan Duffy Chapter of Veterans for Peace and the Santa Fe Jews for Justice Education Committee invite you to the inaugural Santa Fe Palestinian Voices Film Festival. On three consecutive Thursdays in November, we will screen five movies to celebrate and honor the work of Palestinian filmmakers, actors, artists and journalists. Screenings will take place at the Santa Fe Friends Meeting House, 505 Camino De Los Marquez, Santa Fe, NM 87505. Tickets available at the door; $15 donation requested to Gaza Mutual Aid, HEAL Palestine, Middle East Children’s Alliance, or the World Central Kitchen. Read on for details about each evening and film.

Farha, November 6, 7 p.m.

Based on a true story, Darin J. Sallam’s Farha is a haunting account of how the 1948 Nakba devastated Palestinian daily life, as seen through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old girl named Farha. The daughter of the mayor of a rural village in Palestine, Farha spends her days reading and imagining what it would be like to go to school in the city with her best friend, Farida. But when Israeli troops invade the village, Farha faces an impossible choice: whether to flee with Farida or to risk her life to stay with her father in their home. With deep care, Darin J. Sallam—a Jordanian filmmaker with Palestinian roots—leads viewers through the harrowing aftermath. 92 minutes. 2021.

5 Broken Cameras, November 13, 7 p.m.

In 5 Broken Cameras, a documentary co-directed by Palestinian farmer and filmmaker Emad Burnat and Israeli director Guy Davidi, Burnat records Palestinians’ efforts to resist Israel’s seizure of the village Bil’in in the West Bank. Over the course of the 2000s, Israeli soldiers and settlers took the farmland of Bil’in, arrested villagers of all ages, and razed olive groves; Burnat filmed them and villagers’ protests, even as the soldiers repeatedly destroyed his cameras. The movie is a powerful testament to the villagers’ love for their land, and to Burnat’s unrelenting commitment to preserving the truth. 94 minutes. 2011.

Bonboné; The Present; Gaza: Journalists Under Fire, with speaker Said Assali, November 20, 7 p.m.

The film series will conclude with an evening of short films, each depicting a different facet of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation. Rakan Mayasi’s 2017 Bonboné (15 minutes) tells the story of a Palestinian man and woman trying to find a way to conceive a child while the man is imprisoned in an Israeli jail. Farah Nabulsi’s 2020 The Present (24 minutes) follows a father and a daughter in the West Bank as they navigate Israeli checkpoints to buy a gift for the girl’s mother. And Robert Greenwald’s 2025 Gaza: Journalists Under Fire (48 minutes) seeks global accountability for Israel’s killings of more than 178 Palestinian journalists, who were among the more than 68,000 Palestinian people that Israelis have killed during the genocidal destruction of Gaza over the past two years. The film remembers three Palestinian journalists in particular—Belal Jadallah, Heba Al-Abadla, and Ismail al-Ghoul—and documents how Palestinian journalists have nonetheless continued to report on Israel’s crimes against humanity.

After this screening, please join us for a conversation with Said Assali, a Santa Fe resident of Palestinian origin. Assali will speak to audience members about his family’s experiences with the Israeli occupation from 1948 to today.