16 – 28 November 2025
The annual festival’s 2025 edition showcases some of this year’s most anticipated new releases reflecting on Palestine.
Opening the programme at the ICA is Kamal Aljafari’s latest feature, With Hasan in Gaza is a rediscovered trove of MiniDV footage from 2001, when the filmmaker journeyed through Gaza with a local guide, capturing everyday life and fleeting moments that now resonate as powerful reflections on memory, loss, and survival.
The festival also presents Ayouni, an attempt to give faces to the 100,000 forcibly disappeared in Syria. Sepideh Farsi’s Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is a haunting testament to the resilience of daily life under siege in Gaza, captured through a filmmaker's video calls with Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona. The programme concludes on closing night with a shorts session offering a powerful sonic and visual meditation on life in and beyond Gaza, capturing how war, memory and survival are inscribed in sound and silence.
The annual festival’s 2025 edition showcases some of this year’s most anticipated new releases reflecting on Palestine.
Opening the programme at the ICA is Kamal Aljafari’s latest feature, With Hasan in Gaza is a rediscovered trove of MiniDV footage from 2001, when the filmmaker journeyed through Gaza with a local guide, capturing everyday life and fleeting moments that now resonate as powerful reflections on memory, loss, and survival.
The festival also presents Ayouni, an attempt to give faces to the 100,000 forcibly disappeared in Syria. Sepideh Farsi’s Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is a haunting testament to the resilience of daily life under siege in Gaza, captured through a filmmaker's video calls with Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona. The programme concludes on closing night with a shorts session offering a powerful sonic and visual meditation on life in and beyond Gaza, capturing how war, memory and survival are inscribed in sound and silence.
Programme
Sunday 16 November, 1pm
With Hasan in Gaza + Q&A
Rediscovered MiniDV tapes from Gaza in 2001 send Kamal Aljafari on a road‑trip in search for a prison‑mate from 1989. He creates a cinematic reflection on memory and erasure, capturing a Gaza of the past and lives that may never be found again.
Saturday 22 November, 2pm
Ayouni
A six-year journey across countries follows two women searching for their forcibly disappeared loved ones in Syria, transforming silence into a powerful call for justice and remembrance.
Wednesday 26 November, 8.45pm
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk
A haunting testament to the resilience of daily life under siege in Gaza. Captured through a filmmaker's video calls with a Palestinian photojournalist, these calls are a powerful digital lifeline to the realities of war, resistance and survival.
Friday 28 November, 6.30pm
Shorts Programme: Bearing Witness
From soundwaves to trembling ground and watchful skies, four powerful films trace how people bear witness in the shadow of violence. Through sonic archives, silent vibrations, and atmospheric unrest, ordinary people endure extraordinary hardship—holding fragments of life that refuse to be silenced.
Sunday 16 November, 1pm
With Hasan in Gaza + Q&A
Rediscovered MiniDV tapes from Gaza in 2001 send Kamal Aljafari on a road‑trip in search for a prison‑mate from 1989. He creates a cinematic reflection on memory and erasure, capturing a Gaza of the past and lives that may never be found again.
Saturday 22 November, 2pm
Ayouni
A six-year journey across countries follows two women searching for their forcibly disappeared loved ones in Syria, transforming silence into a powerful call for justice and remembrance.
Wednesday 26 November, 8.45pm
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk
A haunting testament to the resilience of daily life under siege in Gaza. Captured through a filmmaker's video calls with a Palestinian photojournalist, these calls are a powerful digital lifeline to the realities of war, resistance and survival.
Friday 28 November, 6.30pm
Shorts Programme: Bearing Witness
From soundwaves to trembling ground and watchful skies, four powerful films trace how people bear witness in the shadow of violence. Through sonic archives, silent vibrations, and atmospheric unrest, ordinary people endure extraordinary hardship—holding fragments of life that refuse to be silenced.
no. 236848.