Queer Cinema for Palestine 2025
by Robin Riad, Seza Tiyara Selen and Jannis Osterburg, Dima Hamdan, Tara Hakim, Hannah Hull , Raghed Charabaty, Dana Dawud, Teyama AlKamli & Omar Gabriel
An eclectic, uncompromising anthology of short films by queer Palestinian filmmakers and queer filmmakers in solidarity with Palestine.
2025 · 1h24m ·
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About the Film
No Pride in Genocide (June 2025)
Queer Cinema for Palestine began as an alternative ethical space for filmmakers who pulled or refused to show their work in the Israeli government-sponsored TLVFest LGBTQ Film Festival. Over the past six years, hundreds of filmmakers have shown their solidarity in response to the boycott call from queer and trans Palestinians. As Israel continues its genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the West Bank, and across historic Palestine, we condemn this violence and stand in solidarity with Palestinians.
ABGAD HAWAZ by Robin Riad, 2024, 1′
Riad uses humour to play with and sit with her mother tongue, offering a ‘false’ lesson in pronunciation. A response to a digital form of anti-Arab hate that Riad witnessed online coming out of the genocide in Gaza. (Written by Tara Hakim for TQFF)
OUT OF GAZA by Seza Tiyara Selen & Jannis Osterburg, 2025, 9′
A young Palestinian woman wants to flee from Gaza with her friends, hoping to find freedom in the West
BLOOD LIKE WATER by Dima Hamdan, 2023, 14′
Shadi embarks on a secret adventure, and accidentally drags his family into a trap where they only have two choices; either collaborate with the Israeli occupation, or be shamed and humiliated by their own people.
A TANGLED WEB DROWNING IN HONEY by Tara Hakim & Hannah Hull, 2023, 9′
a tangled web drowning in honey is an experiential and textural short film that invites viewers into the inner workings of a mind to ponder the ways in which we love and unlove ourselves.
ALIENS IN BEIRUT by Raghed Charabaty, 2025, 16′
Aliens in Beirut blurs doc and fiction, exploring alienation and desire at home through scripted improv, wildlife cinematography and visual experimentation.
PALCORECORE by Dana Dawud, 2023, 8′
Dana Dawud’s Palcorecore (Palestine) is a hypnotic fusion of dance, archival footage, and internet-circulated videos that collapse past and present into a visceral portrait of Palestinian life.
I NEVER PROMISED YOU A JASMINE GARDEN by Teyama AlKamli, 20′
Tara, a queer Palestinian woman in her late 20s, attempts to suppress her internal emotional turbulence during a phone call with her best friend Sarab, with whom she is in love.
DON’T TAKE MY JOY AWAY by Omar Gabriel, 7′
Two friends revel in the small joys of life until violence suddenly disrupts their world. Forced to flee, they embark on a dangerous journey of survival, confronting fear, chaos, and the stark realities around them.
Upcoming Screenings
About the Director
Teyama AlKamli
Teyama Alkamli is an award-winning filmmaker based in Toronto, Canada. Her visually tender and deeply human work deals predominantly with issues of identity, sexuality, displacement and migration. She is an alumna of DocNomads, the European Mobile Film School, Hot Docs Emerging Filmmaker Lab, TIFF Writers’ Studio, and the Canadian Film Centre’s Director Lab.
In 2021 Teyama’s mid-length documentary, Hockey Mom, won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Documentary Program. Her films have screened worldwide at festivals such as TIFF, Berlinale, and Doc Lisboa.
Raghed Charabaty
Raghed Charabaty is an experienced Lebanese-Canadian director (drama, comedy) based in Toronto and Beirut. Charabaty’s films have won at the Toronto International Film Festival: Canada’s Top Ten, and his repertoire of original works have screened at over 100 film festivals worldwide.
Dana Dawud
Dana Dawud is a Palestinian artist and writer exploring internet images and philosophies.
Omar Gabriel
Omar Gabriel is a Lebanese filmmaker whose work explores love, societal pressure, and the courage to break free. With a raw, poetic aesthetic, he amplifies marginalized voices and tells stories of resistance and defiance.
Tara Hakim
Tara Hakim is a multi-disciplinary process-based artist based in Tkaronto, Canada. Originally Palestinian, born and raised in Jordan with an Austrian grandmother, Tara creates public displays of vulnerability that invite the viewer to meditate on notions of self, diasporic existences, and spaces in between – both physically and mentally. Working across video, installation, performance, and, more recently, textiles and ceramics, she intertwines the complexities of cultural history and personal psychology with an experimental, playful, and tender approach.
Dima Hamdan
Dima Hamdan is an award-winning filmmaker based in Berlin. Her last short film, Blood Like Water (2024, Palestine), won the Best Short Narrative awards in the Brooklyn Film Festival and Through Women’s Eyes Film Festival in Florida. Currently on a festival tour, the film has been to nearly 40 festivals so far, including the Bafta-Qualifying Galway Film Festival and Melbourne Film Festival.
Hannah Hull
Hannah Hull (they/them) (UK) is an artist and musician, also known as Burning Salt. The ancient practice of ‘burning salt’ is an act of expulsion, purification or protection. Hull uses song, poetry, drawing, animation and film to these ends. They studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths College. After a decade of specialism in socially-engaged art, Hull is currently focused on exploring somatic practices and trauma. They are also a boat dweller, TEDx speaker, intersectional feminist, queer person and recovering addict.
Robin Riad
Robin Riad is an experimental filmmaker, film programmer, and visual artist. Robin works with analogue mediums, and enjoys exploring the materiality of film in her work. She has screened in countries such as Canada, the United States, Spain, Italy, Germany, India and more. When not making films, Robin spends her time teaching workshops, making potions in the darkroom, and volunteering at local arts organizations.
