Writing on Snow

+Minnesota Premiere
+Palestine

Sunday, 9/30
5:45 p.m.

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ONE MINUTE
Dina Naser
narrative short
11 mins / 2015
Palestine
Arabic with English subtitles
Minnesota premiere

Through both experimental and narrative filmmaking, One Minute reimagines the last moments of a 37-year-old mother’s life as she shelters herself and her daughter from Israel’s intensive strike on Gaza’s Shuja‘iya neighborhood. The film depicts one woman’s story from the thousands killed during the war on Gaza in the summer of 2014.

Festivals and Awards:
Arab Film Festival Berlin, Germany, 2017
International Film Festival Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2017
Boston Palestine Film Festival, US, 2015

Dina Naser holds a bachelor’s degree in art and graphic design from the Applied Science University in Jordan and is currently pursuing her master’s in documentary film direction through the Erasmus Mundus’s DocNomads program. Beginning in the art department, Naser has worked her way through a variety of television and film productions, until she began independently directing and producing.

WRITING ON SNOW / كتابة على الثلج
Rashid Masharawi
narrative
72 mins / 2017
Palestine / Tunisia
Arabic with English subtitles
Minnesota premiere

Set almost entirely inside a cramped apartment during the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza, this film takes place over the course of one night. Five Palestinians—a wounded man, an aid worker, an older couple, and a suspicious stranger—become trapped together during an all-night attack. As their political divisions become apparent and intolerances rise to the surface, each questions the others, interrogating their motivations and dismissing their life experiences even in the face of their shared predicament. Portraying belief and ideology as irreconcilable differences, Writing on Snow offers a metaphor for solidarity in the region through a situation where a lack of acceptance weakens resistance against the Israeli occupation.

Festivals and Awards:
Bronze Award, Muscat International Film Festival, Oman, 2018
Chicago Palestine Film Festival, US, 2018
Fajr International Film Festival, Iran, 2018

Rashid Masharawi grew up in a Shati refugee camp on the Gaza Strip. As a self-taught filmmaker, he began making films at eighteen, and completed his first short, Travel Document, in 1987. He lives and works in Ramallah, where he founded the Cinema Production and Distribution Centre to support the production and circulation of Palestinian cinema.