Toronto Palestine Film Festival Co-Presentation: R21 Aka Restoring Solidarity
Images Festival is committed to providing an accessible festival and continues to work to reduce barriers to participation at our events. This year, we are implementing a COVID-19 policy to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission for all, and to prioritize the participation of people who are disability-identified, immunocompromised, or part of an otherwise vulnerable group.
The following guidelines will be in place: Self-Assessment: We ask that staff and participants screen themselves for COVID-19 before visiting the exhibition.
Documenting an overlooked movement of anti-imperialism between Japan and Palestine, the Tokyo Reels are collection of 20 16mm films. They were safeguarded in Tokyo by the Japanese solidarity movement with Palestine between the 1960s and 1980s. Into this stunning archive comes a reflection on the movement, known as Reel 21 – an undelivered solidarity letter written by a Japanese activist that was lost on its way to a Palestinian filmmaker. Fragments of the letter are found throughout the collection and compiled into an imagined structure that reveals itself during this powerful, meditative film.
Co-Presented with:
Mohanad Yaqubi
Mohanad Yaqubi is a filmmaker, producer, and one of the founders of the Ramallah-based production house, Idiom Films. He is also one of the founders of the research and curatorial collective Subversive Films, which focuses on militant film practice. Since 2017, he is a resident researcher at The School of the Art (KASK) in Ghent, Belgium.
