Where Should the Birds Fly?

Jun 21, 2013

1h 4m

★ 7.0

"Where should we go after the last frontiers? Where should the birds fly after the last sky?" –Mahmoud Darwish

Overview

The film tells the compelling and moving stories of two remarkable young women living in Gaza and the struggle of Gazans trying to maintain their humanity and humor while hoping to find some sense of normality in a world that is anything but normal.

Genres

Documentary

Where Should the Birds Fly? Trailers

Cast

Self

Fida Qishta

Self

Mona Samouni

Director Yigal Bursztyn’s made-for-TV road movie takes viewers on a contemporary journey in which he traces the gospel and teachings of Jewish philosopher, Maimonides (aka the Rambam). Burszstyn goes from the Spanish city of Cordoba to Fes in Morocco, then onwards to Egypt and finally, Israel. In the course of this physical, geographical journey, Bursztyn also does a deep dive into Maimonides’s 12th century canonical work, The Guide for the Perplexed, which he uses as a tool to interpret present-day events and the conflicts between faith and rationale, and between religion, culture, and gender.

8.0

Jerusalem Cuts

Apr 1, 2008

One war, ten days, three stories: the Old City of Jerusalem, at the dawn of a new Middle East. For the Brits, it’s the shameful end of 30 years Mandate. For the Jews, it’s the birthday of their State. And for the Palestinians, it’s a catastrophe. Only now, 60 years later, images can be shown from three opposing points of view, telling a whole new story.

No Image Available

10.0

Leopard Skin

Dec 4, 2006

Some 40 years after setting foot in Israel for the first time, journalist Pierre Nadeau felt the desire to return there to take stock of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

7.0

The Human Factor

May 7, 2021

How US politicians and diplomats, over the past 25 years, have come close to achieving something almost impossible: securing peace between the State of Israel and its Arab and like-minded neighbors, mired in a struggle both dialectical and violent since the early 20th century, due to historical and religious reasons, entrenched offenses and prejudices, and the invisible and tyrannical hand of third countries' geopolitical interests in the area.

7.7

Waltz with Bashir

Jun 12, 2008

An Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.

6.5

Here and Elsewhere

Sep 15, 1976

Here and Elsewhere takes its name from the contrasting footage it shows of the fedayeen and of a French family watching television at home. Originally shot by the Dziga Vertov Group as a film on Palestinian freedom fighters, Godard later reworked the material alongside Anne-Marie Miéville.

7.5

Control Room

Jan 15, 2004

A chronicle which provides a rare window into the international perception of the Iraq War, courtesy of Al Jazeera, the Arab world's most popular news outlet. Roundly criticized by Cabinet members and Pentagon officials for reporting with a pro-Iraqi bias, and strongly condemned for frequently airing civilian causalities as well as footage of American POWs, the station has revealed (and continues to show the world) everything about the Iraq War that the Bush administration did not want it to see.

7.5

Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege

May 1, 2021

During the Syrian civil war, the district of Yarmouk, home to thousands of Palestinians, became the scene of dramatic and ferocious fighting. Little Palestine (Diary of a Siege) is a film that follows the destiny of civilians during the brutal sieges, imposed by the Syrian regime, that took place in the wake of the battles. With his camera, Abdallah Al-Khatib composes a love song to a place that proudly resists the atrocities of war.

7.5

War Photographer

Nov 1, 2001

Documentary about war photographer James Nachtwey, considered by many the greatest war photographer ever.

5.6

West of the Jordan River

Mar 15, 2018

Amos Gitai returns to the occupied territories for the first time since his 1982 documentary FIELD DIARY. WEST OF THE JORDAN RIVER describes the efforts of citizens, Israelis and Palestinians, who are trying to overcome the consequences of occupation. Gitai's film shows the human ties woven by the military, human rights activists, journalists, mourning mothers and even Jewish settlers. Faced with the failure of politics to solve the occupation issue, these men and women rise and act in the name of their civic consciousness. This human energy is a proposal for long overdue change.

0.0

Discordia

Feb 2, 2004

In the fall of 2002, it was announced that Benjamin Netanyahu would deliver a speech at Concordia University in Montreal, and reaction from the student body was swift and sudden.

0.0

Rafah - Chronicles of a city in the Gaza Strip

Jun 3, 2007

Rafah is located in the southern Gaza Strip. It’s a city cut in two by the Philadelphia Road, a security corridor between Sinai and Gaza. It’s destiny changed during the night of 12 September 2005, when the Israeli army withdrew from the Gaza Strip. The Israelis evacuated the Philadelphia Road and the colonies surrounding the city disappeared. But Rafah would never emerge from its chaos. Rafah is the hub of arms trafficking between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Since the Israeli withdrawal, these arms have contributed to the bloody wars between families. After the Hamas victory at the legislative elections, the city sank into a major economic crisis. On 25 June, 2006, Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit was abducted by Palestinian militants using a tunnel dug from Rafah. In reprisal, Tsahal shelled the houses of arms dealers located along the Philadelphia Road. By 12 September, 2006, a year after the withdrawal, all hopes of rebirth had died.

8.5

La bataille de Jérusalem

Dec 12, 2023

This documentary, filmed after October 7, places recent events in context and retraces the extraordinary history of this region to shed light on the present, interviewing actors and witnesses to this conflict: Islamists, Jewish nationalists, imams, rabbis, intellectuals, urban planners, soldiers, etc.

6.1

The Judge

Sep 10, 2017

A verité legal drama about Judge Kholoud Al-Faqih, the first woman appointed to a Shari'a court in the Middle East, whose career provides rare insights into both Islamic law and gendered justice.

0.0

Guy Hircefeld: A Guy with a Camera

Sep 27, 2018

Guy Hircefeld, a veteran who served in the Israeli military at the start of its occupation of Palestine in the 1980s, now fights against the Israeli occupation. His only weapon is a camera.

9.5

The way back home

Invalid Date

The film examines a personal attempt to address existential concepts related to Palestinians such as exile, return and the image of the homeland.

6.2

Kafr Kassem

Jan 2, 1975

On the eve of the Israeli attack on Egypt in 1956, Israel declares martial law in all the occupied Arab territories without any previous notice. When the villagers of Kafr Kassem returned home from the fields, they were butchered and killed in what is known today as the massacre of “Kafr Kassem”.

0.0

Promises & Betrayals: Britain and the Struggle for the Holy Land

Nov 21, 2002

A documentary on how British double-dealing during the First World War ignited the conflict between Arab and Jew in the Middle East. The bitter struggle between Arab and Jew for control of the Holy Land has caused untold suffering in the Middle East for generations. It is often claimed that the crisis originated with Jewish emigration to Palestine and the foundation of the state of Israel. Yet the roots of the conflict are to be found much earlier – in British double-dealing during the First World War. This is a story of intrigue among rival empires; of misguided strategies; and of how conflicting promises to Arab and Jew created a legacy of bloodshed which determined the fate of the Middle East.

0.0

Gaza From Within: Return to Seifa Village

Oct 19, 2015

No overview available.

0.0

Something from there

Sep 1, 2020

Something from there is a short film on the substance of our original lands. Weaving between the voices of the artist’s parents, one a refugee and the other not, the film is personal, yet evokes a shared Palestinian experience.

Where Should the Birds Fly?

Overview

Genres

Where Should the Birds Fly? Trailers