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| Cultural Counselor Abdolmajid Abolghasemi |
A short program with welcome remarks from CCP President Michelle Nikki Junia and Iranian Embassy Cultural Counselor Abdolmajid Abolghasemi preceded the screening of the opening film, The Survivor, that showed the events of 1948 from the perspective of Palestinians.
The Survivor | Almoutabaki
Directed by Seifollah Dad, The Survivor tells about the plight of a Palestinian family, Dr. Saiid, his wife Latifeh, and their infant son Farhan, as they tried to flee from Haifa when Zionist forces started occupying the city.
Halfway through the film, the couple end up as one of the many casualties. Farhan eventually ends up with a Jewish couple who try to raise him as their own, renaming home Moshe.
It is now up to Dr. Saiid's mother, the steadfast Safiyeh, to ensure that Farhan gets to stay where he belongs which is with his family.
The Survivor was adapted from Returning to Haifa by Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani which is collected in Palestine's Children. The stories sheds light on the plight of the oppressed and in this case, Palestinian children who had to go through the horrors of war and political turmoil.
Subsequent film screenings showcasing more of Iranian cinema were held at the UPFI Film Center.
The Iranian Film Festival 2024 was presented by the Cultural Center of the Philippines under its Film, Broadcast and New Media Division, the Cultural Section of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran-Manila, and the UP Film Institute.
RAd's Page Turners | Palestine's Children: Returning to Haifa and Other Stories
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Palestine's Children: Returning to Haifa and Other Stories by Ghassan Kanafani
"Politics and the novel," Ghassan Kanafani once said, "are an indivisible case." Fadl al-Naqib reflected that Kanafani "wrote the Palestinian story, then he was written by it." His narratives offer entry into the Palestinian experience of the conflict that has anguished the people of the Middle East for more than a century.
In Palestine's Children, each story involves a child—a child who is victimized by political events and circumstances, but who nevertheless participates in the struggle toward a better future. As in Kanafani's other fiction, these stories explore the need to recover the past—the lost homeland—by action. At the same time, written by a major talent, they have a universal appeal.
This edition includes the translators' contextual introduction and a short biography of the author.
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