Amsterdam · Beirut · Berlin · London Ontario · London UK · Montreal · Seoul · Toronto · Vancouver
November 14, 2023—Queer Cinema for Palestine presents No Pride in Genocide (December 2–10), a global film and panel event across nine cities. No Pride in Genocide stands in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and across all of historic Palestine and condemns Israel’s genocidal attacks and ethnic cleansing against millions of Palestinians. See full program.
No Pride in Genocide is organized by nearly 40 partner groups around the world and will be streamed on the Toronto Queer Film Festival website.
As Israel commits what scholars, including Israelis, describe as a textbook case of genocide, killing at least 11,000 Palestinians, the Israeli government provided a textbook example of pinkwashing, posting a photo of an Israeli soldier in Gaza with a rainbow flag as a “message of hope.”
No Pride in Genocide opening night will take place on December 2 in London, UK, with compelling short films and a discussion with queer Arab filmmakers, including May Ziadé, Roy Dib, Georges Hazim, and Dania Bdeir.
The Foggy short program will simultaneously screen in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, with films and a discussion with Hadi Moussally, Elias Wakeem, Noor Gatih, and Essa Grayeb, among others, “exploring the theme of solidarity as we make our way together through the fog.”
The Berlin program features the works of three Palestinian artists covering the Gaza Strip, the heavily militarized Sinai Peninsula, and a portrait of masculine performativity in occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem.
From Turtle Island to Palestine in Vancouver pays tribute to First Nation and Palestine solidarity in response to settler colonial violence, with films and a discussion with Sobhi Zobaidi, Tʼuyʼtʼtanat-Cease Wyss, Alize Zorlutuna, Eddy van Wyk, Edzi’u and Hamidreza Jadid.
The Amsterdam event will focus on decolonial fashion, with a short program of queer Palestinian films followed by a panel discussion with Chilean transfeminist Colectivo Malvestidas, “Filmlab: Palestine” co-founder Hadil Abuhmaid, Palestinian visual artist Sharif Waked, Palestinian gender queer artist and activist Elias Wakeem, Palestinian fashion label Trashy, and Palestinian singer-songwriter Bashar Murad.
The Sursock Museum in Beirut will host a program of shorts using music, irony, and intergenerational dialogues to narrate a story of queer love, creativity, and resistance in Arab-speaking countries, followed by a discussion with Omar Gabriel, Sirine Fattouh, Bashar Murad.
Seoul will feature the recent documentary on ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities in Masafer Yatta in the occupied Palestinian West Bank and the role of Korean heavy equipment manufacturer Hyundai.
The event wraps up in London, Ontario on International Human Rights Day with the screening of Photo Booth and a conversation with filmmaker John Greyson and legal scholar Michael Lynk.
Over the past five years, nearly 60 filmmakers have pulled their films from the Israeli government-sponsored TLVFest LGBTQ film festival in response to the boycott call from Palestinian queers.
More than 200 filmmakers, film artists and scholars have signed the Queer Cinema for Palestine pledge not to participate in TLVFest in a sign of growing rejection of Israeli pinkwashing and recognition of the intimate connections between liberation struggles of all oppressed peoples and communities.
Background:
As Israel escalates its indiscriminate bombing campaign and use of “starvation as a weapon of war” killing more than 11,000 Palestinians in Gaza, No Pride in Genocide will be a loud voice in the growing global grassroots consensus calling for an immediate ceasefire and end to Israel’s siege on the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.
As the Israeli military and armed settlers continue killing sprees and ethnic cleansing also in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, No Pride in Genocide will bring to focus Israel’s 75 year regime of settler colonialism and apartheid as the context for the current escalation of violence.
As institutions enable Israel’s current genocidal war and its decades-long oppression of Palestinians for who they are, No Pride in Genocide is also a call for queer and trans communities to take effective action in solidarity with Indigenous Palestinians in their struggle for freedom, justice and equality and to refuse apartheid Israel’s pinkwashing agenda.
As hundreds of thousands around the world rise up and take direct action to stop Israel’s war machine, No Pride In Genocide is part of the decolonial movement for justice for all and the long history of queer, First Nation, and Palestinian solidarity.
No Pride in Genocide film programs and Palestinian and allied speakers will echo the call from Palestinians to refuse complicity with Israel’s apartheid regime.
QUEER CINEMA FOR PALESTINE 