Join us on Wednesday at 7:30 for another Palestine Benefit screening. We'll show Kassem Hawal’s Return to Haifa (77 min, 1982) and Kais al-Zubaidi’s The Visit (10 min, 1970).

Return to Haifa, set in 1967, follows Palestinian couple Saeed and Safiyya on their journey back to their home in Haifa, following their expulsion in 1948, in search of their son who was left behind. Based on Ghassan Kanafani’s novella from 1969, the film portrays the couple’s encounter with the Jewish Israeli Holocaust survivors now living in their home, who have since adopted their son. Shot entirely in Northern Lebanon, the film was produced for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and drew from the Iraqi director’s long-running collaboration with the organization.

“An oneiric film poem,” The Visit blends drawing, photography, sound, and poetry to tell the story of a Palestinian man attempting to cross the border to return home. Produced by the Syrian National Film Organization, the dialogue-void, black and white film employs experimental and expressionist techniques to convey the trauma of exile.