palfest 2015: annual report
DESCRIPTION
Annual report detailing the activities of the 2015 Palestine Festival of Literature. Includes: Artists in attendancePhotographsMedia coverageObstaclesSocial Media HighlightsStaffTRANSCRIPT
2015 Festival Report
2015 Festival Report
Partners
2015 Festival Report
JOHNBERGER
CHINUA ACHEBE
Thank you dear friends for your noble solidarity, thank you for your courageous gesture to break the moral siege inflicted upon us and thank you because you are resisting the invitation to dance on our graves. We are here. We are still alive.
Patrons
PHILIPPULLMAN
EMMATHOMPSON
Mahmoud Darwish, May 2008From PalFest’s first patron, the late, great Mahmoud
Darwish, at PalFest’s opening night in Ramallah.
MAHMOUD DARWISH
SEAMUS HEANEY
HAROLD PINTER
2015 Festival Report
Artists
Leila AbdelrazaqAtef Abu SaifSinan AntoonTarik Al ArabyAsmaa AzaizehAhmed AzemIbtisam AzemMalika BookerFrancesca BorriSarah CarrMolly CrabappleSuha Daher-Nashif
Wafa DarwishArafat el DeekRabeea EidRichard FordGiles FraserRu FreemanSubhi HadidiNathalie HandalAmer HlehelSara IshaqBrigid KeenanFiras Khoury
Suhail MatarKhader MehjezDavid MuraNeesanJamal QawasmiRaja ShehadehWalid el SheikhDirk WanrooijThe Wanted 18Haifa Zangana
PalFest Opening Night, the Ottoman Court Garden, Ramallah - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
Molly Crabapple reads in Ramallah - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
1. To support cultural life in Palestine.
Decades of military occupation have restricted the movement of people, books, and art, and prevented cultural connections which would otherwise have occurred naturally. PalFest brings Palestinian and international artists together, we bring books across the borders, our festival crosses military checkpoints to reach our audiences.
Objectives
PalFest bookstore which tours with the festival at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center, Ramallah - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
Richard Ford by an occupation army watchtower at Bethlehem checkpoint - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
2. To relay a fraction of the Palestinian experience.
For our visiting authors, the festival is an unparalleled opportunity to experience a fraction of life in Palestine. They travel to and perform in cities across historic Palestine, they walk through the streets of Hebron and in the hills of Ramallah, they meet with activists in Haifa and academics in Bethlehem. By the end of the week, they leave with a unique set of impressions and emotions that stay with them forever.
Objectives
Artists cross an Israeli checkpoint in al-Khalil/Hebron [above] and Qalandia checkpoint [below] - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
Subhi Hadidi in the grounds of Al-Makassed Hospital, Jerusalem - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
3. To profile new Palestinian talent.
PalFest is a bi-lingual festival where events happen in both Arabic and English. Every year we highlight new Palestinian talent. This year our programme featured 7 Palestinian authors under the age of 30.
Objectives
Asmaa Azaizeh [above] and Rabea Eid [below] speak at The Arab Cultural Association, Haifa - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
Sinan Antoon reads to a full house at The Ottoman Court, Ramallah on PalFest’s opening night - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
In 2015 we put on free, public events in Bethlehem, Gaza, Haifa, Jerusalem, Nablus and Ramallah. In every venue we enjoyed a full house. We estimate that some 1200 people attended Palfest events this year.
Public Events
PalFest chair Ahdaf Soueif opens PalFest’s final night, at the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
In order to understand as many facets of life in Palestine as possible, the visiting authors meet with a selection of intellectuals and activists. We are grateful to PalFest friends Raja Shehadeh (author), Omar Barghouti (BDS Palestine), Abdelfattah Abusrour (al Rowwad), Mazin Qumsiyeh (Bethlehem University), Raja Khalidi (The Khalidi Library), Ray Dolphin (UNRWA), Ranin Jeries (Zochrot) and Sami Wojkowski (the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee) for sharing their time and their expertise with us.
Author Meetings
Sami Wojkowski [above] and Ray Dolphin [below] discuss life in Palestine with PalFest artists - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
You can find more information about our partners in Palestine below:
Author Meetings
Talks by Ranin Jereis of Zochrot in Haifa [above] and the Khalidi Library in Jerusalem [below] - by Rob Stothard
BDS PalestineBethlehem UniversityHebron Rehabilitation Committee
The Khalidi Libraryal Rowwad Cultural CenterUNOCHA
Zochrot
2015 Festival Report
‘A boy digs through the rubble of his former home‘ by Molly Crabapple - reporting from Gaza after PalFest 2015
2015 Festival Report
For the second year running, the Israeli seige and Egyptian blockade made it impossible for us to bring visiting artists into Gaza. So our partners in Gaza organised three evenings of events under the PalFest banner. These included a literary discussion, a musical performance, a film screening and a long skype interaction with Mourid Barghouti in Cairo.
PalFest Gaza
Neesan [above/below] opened PalFest 2015 with a musical performance at The Adam Hotel, Gaza - Facebook
2015 Festival Report
PalFest Gaza
2015 Festival Report
Leila Abdelrazaq reads graffiti while walking alongside Israel’s apartheid wall in Bethlehem - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
Every year PalFest publishes an anthology of selected works by our authors of the year - translated in Arabic. Most translations are original and commissioned by the festival. This year we printed 500 copies of the anthology which was available free to the audience at every venue. We have also published it online. All the translators as well as the editor contributed their work for free to PalFest.
Translations
2015 Festival Report
We also produced a separate booklet of an original translation of the first twenty pages of Laila Abdelrazaq’s Baddawi. Thank you to Just World Books for their partnership on that initiative.
Translations
Leila Abdelrazaq [above] discusses her work, translated for students at Bethlehem University - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
One of the many ways the British Council supports PalFest is the provision of live simultaneous translation at all our events.
Translations
Khalil Touma [above] provided live translation to PalFest audiences via headset- by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
Authors cross Qalandia checkpoint from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank to Jerusalem - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
Running a travelling festival through a country under military occupation is always a challenge. Two days before the festival was due to begin, one of our visiting artists, Sara Ishaq, was denied entry at the border.
Obstructions
2015 Festival Report
Obstructions
‘Welcome’ signage at the Israeli military controlled Allenby crossing from Jordan into Palestine - @MWHamilton
2015 Festival Report
Obstructions
Raja Shehadeh reads from his book to a full house at the Municpal Library Gardens in Nablus - by Rob Stothard
PalFest moves between cities every day and the group moves as a Palestinian has to. We avoid using settler roads or checkpoints.
2015 Festival Report
Obstructions
2015 Festival Report
In al-Khalil/Hebron, the Old City - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
1. Traditional Media.
There was straight news coverage of the festival on Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Arabic, Middle East Monitor and Jadaliyya.
A high number of participants wrote directly about their experiences and more are working on longer pieces. All have said that the experience will certainly percolate through their work in unforseeable ways.
Laila Abdelrazaq created a series of original illustrations about the festival for the Electronic Intifada.
Tarek el Araby reported on the festival for Al Araby Al Jadeed.
Léa Georgeson Caparros wrote a moving account of her crossing Qalandia for the first time in Mondoweiss.
Our Reach
‘Sanctuary‘ by Leila Abdelrazaq - one of 7 illustrations documenting her PalFest experience on Electronic Intifada
2015 Festival Report
Sarah Carr wrote detailed analytical dispatches for Jadaliyya and Mondoweiss.
Molly Crabapple reported from Gaza for Vice, the 5th most popular magazine website on the internet.
Yasmin El-Rifae wrote about festival preparations for the highly influential LRB Blog.
Giles Fraser dedicated his weekly Guardian column to his time with the festival.
Omar Robert Hamilton wrote about working in Palestine for the past eight years for Mada Masr.
Dirk Wanrooij wrote an extensive, personal account of his trip, also for Mada Masr.
Haifa Zangana wrote important and carefully thought out pieces for Middle East Monitor and Al-Quds Al-Arabi.
Our Reach
‘The ruins of El-Wafa Hospital, in Gaza’s Shujaiya neighborhood’ by Molly Crabapple for VICE
2015 Festival Report
2. Social Media.
It’s impossible to calculate our online reach, but we do know some things:
Each Facebook post reaches an average of 7,000 views and we post multiple times a day.
Over the last year our Facebook page has swelled from 15,000 to 116,000 likes.
Of the pieces written about the festival we are able to track at least 20,000 direct shares.
We created a Storify to pull together some of the social media highlights of the week.
Our Reach
Tech-savy audience members documenting PalFest 2015’s opening night at the Adam Hotel, Gaza - Facebook
2015 Festival Report
Our Reach
One of hundreds of PalFest 2015 posters across the West Bank, here in the Old City of Nablus - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
Our Reach
2015 Festival Report
Our Reach
Ru Freeman reflects on the roof of Al Rowwad Cultural Center, Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
Our Reach
2015 Festival Report
Our Reach
Malika Booker speaks to a packed auditorium at Bethlehem University on PalFest’s 5th day - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
Our Reach
Francesca Borri speaks at PalFest 2015’s closing night at the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center - by Rob Stothard
Writer for the Times Literary Supplement
2015 Festival Report
Giles Fraser speaks at Dar al Tifl in Jerusalem’s Old City - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
We work to run the festival to a tight budget and to spend as much of the funds as possible in Palestine.
We rely on the generosity of our partners and the dedication of our staff each year to deliver the festival. But we continue to run it on less than an ideal budget. So any and all assistance on the financials is always appreciated.
It will hardly make us self-sustainable, but we have established an online shop so fans can buy our famous canvas bags here.
To make a donation, please click here.
Sustainability
Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem, on PalFest’s 5th night - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
At the Municipal Library Gardens, Nablus - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
The PalFest Team:
Board of TrusteesOmar Robert HamiltonNathalie HandalJohn HornerBrigid KeenanAhdaf Soueif
Founding ChairAhdaf Soueif
Festival ProducersOmar Robert Hamilton Yasmin El Rifae
Art DirectorMuiz
Treasurer John Horner
Literature AdvisorNajwan Darwish
Anthology EditorNada Hegazy
Production ManagerBeesan Ramadan
Gaza PartnerDiwan GhazzaEbaa Rezeq
Haifa PartnerThe Arab Cultural Association
Nablus PartnerProject Hope
ConsultantsHussam GhoshehMaath Musleh
Digital EditorLobna Abdulhassan
FilmMurat Gökmen
PhotographyRob Stothard
PRFMcM
Books & BagsIsmail Richard HamiltonLéa Georgeson Caparros
PalFest LogoJeff Fisher
Web ConsultantAhmed Osama
Translation (Live)Khalil Touma
Translation (Texts)Ahmed AdelAhmed Al-HusseinyNada HegazyNouran IbrahimRaghdaa SaberShady Tariq el-SawySomayya el-ShamyYasmine MohsenYusra Mustafa
Staff
Thanks:
Suad Amiry & Selim TamariEyad BarghouthiOmar BarghoutiBloomsbury PublishingPronto CaféSusannah ClappDar al TiflMahira DajaniWafa DarwishRay DolphinRose FentonAmal GhandourPaola HandalThe Hebron Rehabilitation CommitteeRasha HilwiRachel HolmesRaneen GreisRaja KhalidiThe Khalidi LibraryMarlyn KhalilSuha KhuffashSafwan MasriYasmine MohsenThe Nablus Municipal GardensAlexandra PringleThe Ramallah MunicipalityStormtrapHakim SabbahMohammad SayehRaja ShehadehAlan Smart
2015 Festival Report
A man walks through al-Khalil/Hebron’s Old City - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
PalFest 2016 will be running from May 20th to 27th. We are already building a very exciting list of authors. We have new ideas about how to develop the festival and we will be excited to roll those out later in the year.
The Future
PalFest artists purchase local products in Nablus’ Old City while en-route to the event venue - by Rob Stothard
William Sutcliffe attended PalFest in 2010.
2015 Festival Report
A Palestinian man returns home after attending a PalFest event hosted by Aida Refugee Camp - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. We post news about Palestine all year round.
You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, bookmark our website where we’ll be debuting more content once our re-design and build is completed and subscribe to our Mailing List.
Come to our Events.
Click here to make a gift. Or to discuss a major donation to the festival please email Omar on [email protected]
How to Help
PalFest artists purchase local products in Nablus’ Old City while en-route to the event venue - by Rob Stothard
PalFest closes its panel event at Bethlehem University to rapturous applause and laughter - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
“This is a book that Americans who believe they’re interested in a ‘just peace’ between Palestinians and Israelis should read. It’s a wide and diverse and eloquent book of witness. And it’s a revelation, and it’s shocking. And it’s tragic.” — RICHARD FORD
“Extraordinary Rendition stands in the tradition of engaged artists, speaking in defense of liberty and justice—values that ought to be universal but just as often are used as fig leaves by history’s victors. Here, renowned writers turn their words to battered, defiant and beautiful Palestine (a place whose oppressors receive the backing of America, a country whose passport many of these writers hold). Its a risky stance, but the best art takes risks. Inside find nuance, challenge, empathy deep into the bone.” — MOLLY CRABAPPLE
“In Extraordinary Rendition, an eclectic range of American writers break through the stereotypes and distortions of our media and provide a far more nuanced, penetrating and three-dimensional portrait of Palestinians, their history and the political realities they face daily. The range of genres and approaches make this a necessary and timely anthology, and it should be read by as large and wide-ranging an audience as possible.” — DAVID MURA
How to Help
Extraordinary Rendition brings together the work of sixty-five prominent writers to examine America’s culpability in the denial of human rights and dignity to Palestinians in Israel/Palestine and beyond.
2015 Festival Report
A moment’s quiet in the Ramallah hills - by Rob Stothard
2015 Festival Report
2015 Festival Report