88 Lothian Road
Sat 29 Aug · 12:00
Screening as part of Falastin Film Festival 2026 . This screening will be followed by a Q&A. Inspired by Mohammed El-Kurd's critique of the "perfect victim," this programme brings together two films that refuse the narrow roles so often assigned to Palestinian men. Across life before and during Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza, they offer intimate portraits of men in all their contradictions – playful, vulnerable, stubborn, imperfect, and deeply ordinary – insisting on the right to be seen as fully human rather than as symbols to be judged. FILMS FEATURED: Free Fish (dir. Bisan Owda, Gaza/Portugal, 2025, 21 mins, Arabic w/ English subtitles) Free Fish is an intimate short documentary filmed entirely in Gaza during one of the deadliest years in recent history. The film follows two brothers, Mohammad and Ahmad Kaloob, separated by siege and displacement, yet bound by the sea. Mohammad, displaced in Khan Younis with his two young daughters, fishes from the South and tries to find alternatives for the boat and net he lost in the bombing of Gaza Seaport. Ahmad, still in the North under total blockade, risks his life each morning near the Al-Shate’e refugee camp, what was once a livelihood is now a daily act of survival, the coastline is militarized, boats are shot at and hunger is used as a weapon of war. And yet, the brothers return to the sea. They cast their nets and their memories, into waters that no longer offer freedom, but still carry meaning. Fishing becomes a fragile ritual of resistance, of connection, of presence. The film also follows Rami, Mohammad’s teenage nephew, who lost his twin brother during the genocide and now fishes alone. Through him, Free Fish becomes not just a story of survival, but of grief, inheritance, and the quiet defiance of those who refuse to disappear. Gazan Tales (dir. Mahmoud Nabil Ahmed, Palestine/Tunisia, 2024, 83 mins, Arabic w/ English subtitles) In the heart of the beloved Gaza Strip, four men navigate through divergent paths
Not the same tradition as the lineage above — a genuinely different thread to pull, if you want one.