We are honoured to be a venue for this year’s SAFAR Film Festival, the UK’s leading platform for independent Arab cinema, run by the Arab British Centre (a London-based charity that works to further understanding of the Arab world in the UK) and celebrating it’s 10th edition of this Festival. Filmmaker Carol Mansour* will be joining us in-person for a post-screening discussion of A State Of Passion. This screening is presented in Partnership with Bristol Palestine Film Festival.
After 43 horrific days working round the clock under constant bombardment in the emergency rooms of Gaza’s Al Shifa and Al Ahli hospitals, British-Palestinian reconstructive surgeon, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, emerged to find himself as a face of Palestinian resistance.
With news footage of him pale and shell-shocked reverberating around the world, he spoke of a catalogue of horrors from lacerated bodies, to amputations without anesthetics, orphaned children with no surviving family, and the deliberate targeting of medics and hospital facilities.
This was Ghassan’s sixth and most horrific Gaza “war”. Why does he do it? Where does he find the strength to face it again and again? How does it impact his family? How do they process the risks he takes? The answer lies simply in their shared passion: Palestine, a passion they articulate through their support of his perilous humanitarian work.
Filmmakers Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi, close friends of the Abu Sittahs, share that same passion. They were waiting anxiously for Ghassan to emerge from Gaza, following a long and terrifying journey through the night, to meet him in Amman. Determined to capture his raw emotions they began filming him the moment he arrived through the door. Following him to Beirut, Amman, London, Kuwait, and Dubai, they and he explore their common State of Passion.
Premiering at the 2024 Cairo International Film Festival and awarded the Saad Eldin Wahba Award for Best Arabic Film, A State of Passion offers a deeply human perspective on the cost of survival and the ongoing fight for dignity.
Content notes: this film contains graphic footage of war including torture, injury, surgery and views of dead bodies.
*We hope to have news soon on whether co-filmmaker Muna Khalid will also be able to join us – watch this space.
Starring:
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah
Directed By:
Carol Mansour, Muna Khalidi
Running time:
90 mins