Panels & Special Programs

2009 Festival Panels & Special Programs

Toronto – 2020 (25/Canada)

Gardiner Museum
7:30 – 9:30pm
SPECIAL SCREENING AND PANEL
Sponsored by SunTV
COST $10.00

TIME (4/CANADA)

Toronto’s architectural history is compressed in to a 4-minute time-lapse wonder as familiar corners are built, rebuilt and re-branded into the modern streets of today.

TORONTO – 2020 (25/CANADA)—PANEL

Five architects, five questions, looking ahead 10 years – their 2020 vision for Toronto followed by an exciting panel...
A CONVERSATION WITH 4 OF TORONTO’S TOP ARCHITECTS
Panel Moderator: Rob Granatstein, Toronto Sun
Architects: Tarek El Khatib, Les Klein, Jonathan Kearns, Jill Taylor

Land & Conflict

Presented by Planet in Focus , Voices Forward and the International Diaspora Film Festival

Land & Conflict is a unique collaboration among three Toronto festivals that will present artistic works in the medium of film, photography, poetry and music focused on a people and land in contested terrain. Palestinian, Israeli, Bedouin, Burmese and Diasporic viewpoints are represented in a rich panoply of artistic expression.

Schedule of Programs

Opening Saturday, October 24, 2:00- 6:00pm

Photography Exhibition & Screening

Arta Gallery

Photographers: Babak Salari & Anne Bayin

Off The Wall

Babak Salari, an Iranian photographer in exile, presents a photographic chronicle of the wall separating Israel and Palestine in 2004. Salari is a Montreal based documentary photographer and cultural activist who has been living in exile in Canada for the past 22 years. He has created several bodies of work exploring the double consciousness of otherness, marginality and diasporic identity. Educated at Concordia University and Dawson Institute of Photography, Babak has been acclaimed for his high degree of technical and artistic accomplishment.

Liberty Project

Photographer Anne Bayin will present her latest exploration of social justice and liberty, with portraits of high ranking politicians and artists wearing a mask of Aung San Suu Kyi, the imprisoned opposition leader of Burma. The notables include Vaclav Havel, Margaret Atwood and many more.

Bayin is a photographer and writer of Burmese and Scottish descent. In the mid-90’s, during her extensive career as a televsion journalist, Bayin co-produced The Prisoner, a documentary on Aung San Suu Kyi for CBC’s Man Alive. Her photographs and writings have appeared in many national and international publications. Her artistic work is part of the acclaimed M.I.L.K. collection, where her award-winning portrait Kim Phuc and Thomas was exhibited in New York, London, Sydney and featured in Family: A Celebration of Humanity.

Perspectives on the Wall. A Reading

Sunday, November 1, 5:30- 7:30 pm

Arta Gallery

Hanadi Loubani will present a series of poetic works and writings on the theme of Land & Conflict.

Stay tuned for more details

Hanadi Loubani is a Palestinian Canadian writer and activist. Hanadi has been involved with VF for the last three years.

Tuesday, November 3, 8:00pm

Music Program

Tickets $25/person & 25/Students

Revival Bar

At Home Around the World - A Musical Mosaic With David Amram and Friends Celebrating the Spirit of Diaspora

An evening of music from the Middle East, including Arab, Jewish, Iranian, Afghani and Pakistani influences arranged by David Amram in conjunction with Small World Music and local musicians.

For over fifty years composer and writer David Amram has composed orchestral and chamber music works, written many scores for Broadway theater and film, including the scores for Splendor in The Grass and The Manchurian Candidate; the groundbreaking Holocaust opera The Final Ingredient; and the score for the landmark 1959 documentary "Pull My Daisy," narrated by novelist Jack Kerouac. He recently collaborated with the late Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes) on "Missa Manhattan" and completed the score for Teri Mcluhan’s documentary Frontier Gandhi: Badshah Khan, which will open the International Diaspora Film Festival.

Screening Program

Saturday, October 24, 3:00 - 4:00pm

Free admission, Arta Gallery

Kalandia - A Checkpoint's Story (59/Israel)

Over a span of six years, filmmaker Neta Efrony, a member of Machsom Watch (Checkpoint Watch), documented Kalandia (an Israeli military Checkpoint) on the road between East Jerusalem and Ramallah - which grew and expanded into becoming a Terminal. Followed by a post screening discussion.

Saturday, October 24, 9:30 – 11:30 pm, ROM

Voices From El Sayed (75/Israel/doc)

The Bedouin village of El Sayed houses the largest community of deaf people in the world. When Salim, a villager, is presented with an opportunity to offer his son Muhammad a cochlear implant the close-knit community has mixed reactions in this beautiful and layered documentary by award winning filmmaker Oded Adomi Leshem. Producer Itay Ken-Tor will be in attendance for a post screening discussion.

Sunday, October 25, 3:00 pm - 5:00pm, Innis College

Jerusalem Moments 2009 (80/Israel/Palestine/docs)

Seven young Palestinian and Israeli directors create short documentaries that reflect the complexity of urban life in Jerusalem in the context of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The series was commissioned by Ir Amim (City of Nations), a non-profit and non- partisan organization in Jerusalem founded in order to actively engage in those issues impacting Israeli-Palestinian relations in Jerusalem and the political future of the city. A post screening discussion will include participating filmmakers.

Thursday November 5, 7:00pm, Innis College

Z32 (81/Israel-France/doc)

A former Israeli soldier is burdened by guilt over a revenge operation in which two Palestinian policemen were murdered. Directed by acclaimed documentary and experimental filmmaker Avi Mograbi.

Sunday, November 8, 2:00pm, Innis College

Jaffawiye (18/Israel/doc)

The seaside town of Jaffa is the wellspring of a socially conscious group of rap musicians made up of Arabs, Jews and multiethnic immigrants who reside there.

On Hold, (52/Israel/doc)

A young Palestinian couple, who are also actors, feel they have no future as citizens residing in the State of Israel and plan their departure in this poignant documentary directed by Rokaya Sabbah, herself, at the story’s centre.

Sunday, November 8, 8:00pm, Innis College

Jaffa(100/Israel/drama)

Jaffa, the ancient Mediterranean port city, is the setting for what at first appears as a contemporary Romeo and Juliet drama between Mali, a Jewish young woman, and Taufek, a young Arab man, who works in her father's garage with his own father. Keren Yedaya whose film Or won the Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004, directs this moving drama.

About Land & Conflict

Land & Conflict was curated by the directors of three festivals Amit Breuer, (Voices Forward) Shahram Tabe (International Diaspora Film Festival) and Candida Paltiel (Planet in Focus). The program begins during the Planet in Focus Festival (October 21-25) and segues through to the International Diaspora Film Festival (November 4-8).

Common to all three festivals is the exploration of land and conflict and the direct impact on the lives of individuals and communities at the heart of a tempestuous environment. One finds, that regardless of the points of view revealed here, there is a yearning for a sense of place, justice and dignity on the patch of earth portrayed. Where one cannot find it, we witness the causes and making of exilic communities with all the pain that departures ensue, in spite of the hope for new beginnings in countries like our own.

We wish to thank the artists, individuals and organizations who have made this program possible. In particular we wish to thank : Helen Zukerman, Christina Kozak, Faye Athari, Babak Salari, Anne Bayin, Hanadi Loubani, David Amram, Small World Music, Caroline Kirshner, Maria Bridgemohan, Dagny Thompson, Keren Yedaya, Go2 Films, Mozer Films, Ir Amim, Gesher Multucultural Film Fund.

Land & Conflict Venues

Arta Gallery:

55 Mill Street Suite 102, Bldg. 9, Toronto | 416-364- 2782

Revival Bar:

783 College Street (at Shaw), Toronto | 416 535 7888

Royal Ontario Museum:

100 Queen's Park, Toronto, Southern entrance

Innis College:

2 Sussex Drive , Toronto

_{Tickets for film programs during Planet in Focus International Environmental Film & Video Festival}

416-967-3456

_{Tickets for Music and Film Program}