December 10
IN PERSON at University College, Western University
FILM SCREENING at 3:00 PM
CONVERSATION at 7:00 PM
A Screening + A Conversation with John Greyson and Michael Lynk
The Embassy Cultural House is proud to present a screening of the powerful, experimental documentary, Photo Booth (2022) by Canadian director, activist, and artist John Greyson. To follow is a conversation between Greyson and Michael Lynk, Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Law at Western University and Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories from 2016 to 2022. The program will also include a screening of Montreal-based, Palestinian artist and teacher, Razan AlSalah’s 2017 short film, أبوكي خلق عمره ١٠٠ سنة، زي النك your father was born 100 years old, and so was the Nakba.
John Greyson’s ability to weave a tapestry of ideas, histories, emotions and potentials and Michael Lynk’s knowledge of and experience with Palestinian human rights issues will ensure both a compelling and critical discussion. In the words of the respected Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, “he thinks of the journey of thought across borders,” and we hope that this event will inspire further conversation of Palestine in London, Ontario, and abroad.
Film program
Photo Booth, John Greyson, 113 min, Canada (2022)
English
In this split-screen opera-documentary about boycott activism, two Palestinian brothers plot with novelist Jean Genet in Jericho to sabotage the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest. Their method? Secure the collaboration of Buddy and Pedro, Toronto’s famous naked gay singing penguins. Photo Booth weaves together diverse doc, opera, and video art scenes, blending humour and song to explore the politics of boycott, staged in a surreal landscape of megaphones and photo booths, twelve-tone and split-screen, frisbees and teargas, Gaga and Gaza, solidarity and silence.
John Greyson (writer/director) is a Toronto video/film artist. A pioneer of the new Queer Cinema, his many features, shorts, and transmedia works use humour and song to explore queer activist issues. The winner of 4 Teddies, 4 Canadian Screen Awards, and Best Film Prizes in over 30 international festivals, his works include: Photo Booth (2022), International Dawn Chorus Day (2021), Mercurial (2018), Gazonto (2016), Murder in Passing (2013), Fig Trees (2009), Lilies (1996), Zero Patience (1993), The Making of Monsters (1991), and Urinal (1989).
Speakers
John Greyson (writer/director) is a Toronto video/film artist. A pioneer of the new Queer Cinema, his many features, shorts, and transmedia works use humour and song to explore queer activist issues. The winner of 4 Teddies, 4 Canadian Screen Awards, and Best Film Prizes in over 30 international festivals, his works include: Photo Booth (2022), International Dawn Chorus Day (2021), Mercurial (2018), Gazonto (2016), Murder in Passing (2013), Fig Trees (2009), Lilies (1996), Zero Patience (1993), The Making of Monsters (1991), and Urinal (1989).
Michael Lynk is Professor Emeritus at the Faculty of Law, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada, where he taught between 1999 and 2022. In May 2016, the United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously selected Professor Lynk for a six-year term (until April 2022) as the 7th Special Rapporteur for the human rights situation in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967. He has written about his UN experiences in a 2022 book co-authored with Richard Falk and John Dugard, two of his predecessors as UN special rapporteurs: Protecting Human Rights in Occupied Palestine: Working Through the United Nations (Clarity Press, 2022).
Presented by Embassy Cultural House; Film Studies, Western University; Visual Arts, Western University; People for Peace, London, Canada; Independent Jewish Voices, London, Canada; London’s Queer Muslim Association (LQMA)
QUEER CINEMA FOR PALESTINE 