Promoting Palestine as a destination for filmmakers

The Palestine Film Club is a collective of independent Palestinian filmmakers and artists with a mission of promoting and encouraging interest in film in Palestine. The collective organises workshops, inviting professionals to lead and promote Palestine as a film destination.

The idea was launched early May 2017 by Muhannad Halawani, the financer of the club. Aida Kaadan, the co-financer, told Palestine Monitor the idea was to mingle and connect between all Palestinians. “A lot of artists have a lot of potential but they did not have the opportunity to connect under the same roof. People from the West Bank didn’t really [produce] together. So Muhannad thought they [we should] do something that connects people,” Kaadan told Palestine Monitor.

When they realised the lack of material means, both Halawani and Kaadan planned a meet up of around 90 people who work in Palestine’s film industry. From this, the idea of screenings began in August last year.

After four screenings, Palestine Film Club decided to plan workshops to teach Palestinians filming skills, acting and directing. March 2018 saw the first workshop held just outside of Ramallah.

The Palestine Film Club remains a non-governmental and not-for-profit association. By using the term “club” they aspire to keep the popular, youthful aspect of their work, Kaadan told Palestine Monitor. As part of the community of young filmmakers, they believe film should be available for all to reach, in all of the society’s layers.

“Our hopes are that Palestine Film Club becomes the platform for free accessible filmmaking, a platform which embraces all types of genres and vision and help them grow from scratch,” Kaadan told Palestine Monitor.

The next step is to launch a different workshop every month, with the long term goal to work as a pre-production company for foreign filmmakers who would like to shoot in the West Bank. The Palestine Film Club will provide them with scouting the location, casting people and helping build solid bases before they start production.