Palestinian director Michael Khalifi will participate as a jury member of the 24th session of the International Contest for Ethnographic and Social Film Festival which specializes in screening documentary films, known as “Reality Festival”.
The festival will be held at George Pompidou Culture Center in Paris during the period between March 8-17 2002 and will include apart from a French contest and a number of features a film international contest.
This year the festival will honor Czick and Slav films, which will also be the topic for a round table discussion by directors and producers from the two countries.
In addition to Khalifi, the Mauritanian director Abdel Rahman Sisaco, French actress Audit Scope, Czick director Peter Vaklav and French director Caty Levi will also participate in the jury. The jury will hand out prizes to the winning long and short films at the concluding ceremony of the festival.
32 films of which 12 are shorts ones from 22 countries including Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Argentina, Australia, Austria, China, Turkey, Japan and others will compete in the international contest.
In the absence of any Arab participation, Iran will enter the contest with two films: Passion and Water directed by Nahida Ridaei and al Masann Neighborhood Man directed by Mihfash Sheikh al Islam. Albawaba.com
Michael Khalifi was born in Nazareth, 1950. He studied cinema in Belgium. Khalifi presented several films including: Images From Rich Memories, 1980. It is a Belgian-Dutch production and relies on a dialogue between two women; one of whom is a martyr widow - Romi Farah, a Christian village girl, and the Muslim writer - Sahar Khalifa, a city girl. The movie depicts the daily struggle for both of them to achieve the country's rights and their rights as women as well.
Hebron Marriage, 1987. It is also Belgian-Dutch-French-British-German production that talks about a marriage party in a village under occupation. The Israeli governor insists on attending the party before allowing it. During the party several contradictions appear between the occupation soldiers and the villagers in dealing with land, animal, food and drink. But this does not deny the dialogue between the two parties.
The Anthem of the Stone is the first film on the Palestinian Intifada against the Israeli occupation. It has two parts: the first is an authentication on the ‘Stone Intifada’; the second is narrative on a love story between intellectual Palestinians.
The Story of the Three Jewels is Belgian-French-British-Palestinian production . However, Michael Khalifi's films are authentication ones containing a narrative part, and not long films – Albawaba.com
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
