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3000 Nights (Mai Masri, 2015) Online Screening + Discussion

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Venue: Online

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Mai Masri’s feature film 3000 Nights (2015) will be made available via the BIMI Screening Room for 24 hours, please find a link to the film: https://essayfilmfestival-screeningroom.com/22046157

A discussion with the director, which will take place at 18:00 on Friday 29 October from this link: https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/d04352a02e884793b324563874d4c932 

                                           

3000 Nights is based on the intimate and collective stories of Palestinian women prisoners; a story built around several real events and people Mai met over thirty years of film-making. Victoria Brittain (author of Love and Resistance in the Films of Mai Masri, 2020) writes that 3000 Nights is ‘the most ambitious and fullest expression of Mai’s life long preoccupations with two central themes of the Palestinian experience: incarceration, and the role of women, as mothers, as political actors and as fighters.’ 

 

Although set in the 1980s, the film reflects an ongoing reality, which we can find in unfolding news of Palestinian political prisoners[1] and the recent experience of Anhar al-Deek[2]. In Mai’s own words, she wants to show ‘not only the pain and suffering, but also the sense of community, resilience and creativity of the Palestinian women prisoners that empowers them to endure and maintain hope.’[3]

 

3000 Nights will be made available to watch 24 hours prior to the discussion. The film and other films of Mai Masri’s will soon be available on Netflix. 

 

For the event, journalist and writer Victoria Brittain will chair a conversation between Mai Masri, Professor Hamid Dabashi and  Sahar Francis, lawyer and General Director of Adameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association in Ramallah. We are excited to welcome these speakers, whose shared experience and knowledge holds the promise of an illuminating evening.

 

Mai Masri

 

Mai Masri is a Palestinian filmmaker, director and producer, who studied at San Francisco State University, USA. Her films are screened worldwide and have won over 90 awards. Primarily documentaries, their focus is on the everyday experiences of women and children living in Lebanon and occupied Palestinian territories. Her feature film, 3000 Nights (2015) had its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival and won 28 awards. Mai worked closely with her late husband filmmaker, Jean Chamoun and earned international acclaim with her films, which include Under the Rubble (1983), War Generation (1989), Suspended Dreams (1992), Children of Shatila (1998) and 33 Days (2007).

 

Hamid Dabashi

 

Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He received a dual Ph.D. in Sociology of Culture and Islamic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. Professor Dabashi has taught and delivered lectures in many North American, European, Arab, and Iranian universities.

Professor Dabashi has written 22 books, edited four, and contributed chapters to many more. He is also the author of over 100 essays, articles and book reviews on subjects ranging from Iranian Studies, medieval and modern Islam, and comparative literature to world cinema and the philosophy of art (trans-aesthetics). His books include Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, Future (2001); Masters and Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema (2007); and an edited volume, Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema (2006).

 

Victoria Brittain

 

Victoria Brittain is a British journalist and author, living and working for many years in Africa, Washington, and Saigon, including over 20 years at The Guardian, where she was an associate foreign editor. Brittain has reported from more than two dozen African countries, as well as the Middle East, particularly Palestine and Lebanon, and Cuba. A notable campaigner for human rights, her activist writings and work encompass books, plays and broadcasts. Her plays and books include: Guantanamo (Tricycle Theatre, 2004), with Gillian Slovo; The Meaning of Waiting (Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, 2010); Shadow Lives: The Forgotten Women of the War on Terror (2013) and Love and Resistance in the Films of Mai Masri (2020). Brittain is a trustee of Prisoners of Conscience[4] and the Palestine Book Awards, and was a founder member of the annual Palestine Festival of Literature[5].

Sahar Francis

 

Since 2006, Sahar Francis has been the General Director of Ramallah-based Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, a Palestinian NGO providing legal and advocacy support to Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli and Palestinian prisons. An attorney by training, she joined the association in 1998, first as a human rights lawyer, then as head of the Legal Unit. With over sixteen years of human rights experience, including human rights counseling and representation, Francis also was on the Board of Defence for Children International – Palestine Section for 4 years, and currently sits on the Board of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees.

 



[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/15/israeli-intelligence-torturing-palestinian-prisoners-lawyers
[2] https://www.addameer.org/news/4484; https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/5/palestinian-prisoner-admitted-to-house-arrest-to-give-birth
[3] https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/232341
[4] https://www.prisonersofconscience.org/
[5] https://www.palfest.org/

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