A STONE’S THROW
(على مرمى حجر)
Dir. Razan AlSalah, 2024.
Canada, Palestine, Lebanon. 40 min.
In Arabic and English with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 1 - 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7 - 10 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 12 - 10 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 31 - 10 PM

A standout selection from the 2024 edition of Prismatic Ground, Canada-based Palestinian artist Razan AlSalah’s latest film presents an auto-biographical account from her father, who was displaced as a child from Palestine to Lebanon during the first Nakba. To support his family, Amine would leave Beirut routinely for over a month at a time to work for an oil platform on the secretive Zirku Island. Connecting a broader lineage of Palestinian labor and extractive sites, AlSalah’s family story is interwoven with the sabotage of a British pipeline from Iraq to Haifa in 1936.

Barred from access to location shooting, A STONE’S THROW instead creates a haunting and occasionally humorous visual tapestry with a toolkit of creative code, satellite maps, bizarre corporate films, and analog filmmaking. In doing so, the story of an individual man provokes contemplation of a present moment where Palestinians have to move to escape genocidal violence and fossil fuels keep flowing from the earth.

All screenings of will be preceded by a pre-recorded intro from the filmmaker.

Preceded by
YOUR FATHER WAS BORN 100 YEARS OLD, AND SO WAS THE NAKBA
(أبوكي خلق عمره ١٠٠ سنة، زي النكب)
Dir. Razan AlSalah, 2018.
Canada, Palestine. 7 min.
In Arabic with English subtitles.

From the perspective of a ghost in a machine. AlSalah’s grandmother is dropped into a Google Streetview of Haifa and wanders in search of her family home and son Amine. This maze of still, distorted images from a transformed city offers no hospitality. 70 years after the Nakba, on the ports used to displace Palestinians to Beirut, the phantom finds tourists.