FOGGY: Palestine Solidarity, Cinema & The Archive

Bachir/Yerex Presentation Space, 4th floor, 401 Richmond St. West
Monday, December 4, 2023: doors open 6:00 p.m., screening 7:00 p.m.
First-come, first seated

From December 5 to 10, watch the program online, courtesy of the Toronto Queer Film Festival.

Presented by Viral Interventions, Vtape, The Arquives, Toronto Palestine
Film Festival, Pal Fest, Trinity Square Video & Archive/Counter-Archive

Dedicated to the memory of Amy Gottlieb (1954-2023), queer artist and activist extraordinaire, whose lifetime of solidarity with Palestine inspired this screening.

Curated by b.h. Yael, Marc Siegel, Lior Shamriz & John Greyson

How can family memories inform practices of solidarity? How can avant-garde voices engaging the past contribute to activism today? How do private archives queer public histories? How do yesterday’s photographs become tomorrow’s pictures? Foggy is a screening of recent short films that stage hybrid acts of fragmentation, juxtaposition, re-enactment and dialogue. Together they explore themes of queer solidarity with Palestine, as we make our way together through the fog.

SULTANA’S REIGN (Hadi Moussally, 2023, 10:00 min.)
Portrait of a proud Palestinian drag queen, performer and artist, holding court in New York. Hadi Moussally is a Lebanese-French filmmaker whose films have won 50 awards and screened in over 350 international festivals.

HOMECOMING QUEENZ (Elias Wakeem, 2023, 11:00 min.)
Performance artists in drag confront bigoted border guards at Ben Gurion airport. Elias Wakeem is a performance artist exploring themes of identity and resilience through visual storytelling.

LAYLA (Noor Gatih, 2021, 4:00 min.)
A young woman stares out a window as she daydreams about a part of herself that she’s unable to openly express. Noor Gatih is a queer filmmaker who explores family and identity in her work.

TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT (Amy Gottlieb, 1987, 7:00 min.)
Tribute to her radical mother’s activism and solidarity. Amy Gottlieb (1954-2023) was a Toronto queer artist, activist and educator whose lifetime of solidarity with Palestine inspired this screening.

NAZARETH (Mike Hoolboom, 2023, 7:00 min.)
A return to the fateful year of 1948 in Israel, reframed by a single photograph that is taken up one face at a time. MIke Hoolboom is a Toronto artist who writes and makes movies.

MY WHOLE HEART IS WITH YOU (Essa Grayeb, 2022, 9:00 min.)
An experimental video that transforms moments of tension and anticipation from Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s 1967 resignation speech into an emotional journey. Essa Grayeb is a Palestinian visual artist based in Jerusalem whose practice traverses a range of media, primarily photography, moving images and installation.

EVEN A DOG IN BABYLON (Lior Shamriz, 2023, 11:00 min.)
In collaboration with actor Myriam Ali-Ahmad, a radical staging of doubts and debates in a foggy field. Lior Shamriz is a filmmaker and artist based in Santa Cruz, California.

THE POEM WE SANG (Annie Sakkab, 2023, 13:00 min., work-in-progress / sneak preview)
A creative catharsis of post-memory mediated through layers of love, loss, longing, and forced migration. Annie Sakkab is a Toronto-Jordan photojournalist and filmmaker.

Following the screening, the featured artists join co-curators BH Yael & Marc Siegel in conversation.

Image credit: The Poem We Sang, by Annie Sakkab (2023)