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Screening will start at 12:00 Noon US EST; 7:00 PM Palestine Time, 24 minutes, Arabic and Italian with English subtitles - 2023. The film screening will be followed by a discussion with film director Eliana Riva.
About the Film
The documentary, 40 years after the massacre of the Palestinian refugee camps of Beirut, Sabra and Chatila, collects the testimonies of the survivors and stories of the youngest. In addition to carrying out a historical reconstruction of the phases that led to the massacre of hundreds, perhaps thousands of Palestinians, especially elderly women and children, the work takes a look at the condition of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon today, on their aspirations, telling how the dream of returning in their land of origin clashes with the difficult Lebanese reality and the clear closure of Israel to the "right of return".
Director’s Note
After the explosion at the port of Beirut, Lebanon has entered an unprecedented economic and social crisis. People cannot withdraw their money from banks, there are no medicines, there is no electricity. Savings, like money, have no more value. I wondered, if this was happening in the real country, what could be the situation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, crammed into UNRWA camps for 74 years. My desire to tell stories came together with a sad anniversary: the fortieth anniversary of the massacre in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila. I therefore decided to start from that past to get to the present and imagine the future. I had a special person accompany me, the protagonist of the short film, whose story was exactly for me. Vittorio has lived in the camps since the age of 9. Shortly before the massacre he was a young man, a fighter. Together with his peers he left the refugee camps as agreed: the United States and the international community guaranteed that once the fighters left, the inhabitants of the camps would be safe. It wasn't like that. After a while the Lebanese Phalanges, under the control of the Israeli army, entered Sabra and Chatila and massacred the defenseless population for 3 days and 3 nights. Vittorio felt betrayed and a traitor. Although he wanted to, he was never able to return to Lebanon. He did it for the first time with us, 40 years after that massacre.
About the Director
Historian, journalist and editor, Eliana Riva was born in Campania, in the south of Italy in the 1986. Graduated in the history of Islamic countries, she is an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is her first short film. She is editor-in-chief of the journalistic information magazine Pagine Esteri, which mainly deals with the Middle East, Africa, the Mediterranean, Asia and South America. She is a collaborator of the national television networks Rai 3 and Rai Storia.