30 Films for Palestine and Where to Stream Them
As genocide has unfolded in Gaza over the last month our hearts have turned to Palestine, and so we seek any connection we can find. One place to create empathy, and understanding is through the amazing set of films created about Palestine. Over the last few years, the Center for Global Muslim Life has been building a Global Muslim Film streaming database as part of our research project, The State of Global Muslim Film — From Streaming to Local Film Markets. As this crisis has unfolded in Gaza we have decided to put out the films we have collected about Palestine so far that are currently on streaming platforms.
We are looking at streaming as the end of the line for a film life today to help us understand the many gaps in the Muslim filmmaking world from funding, to film festivals and distribution models. As others have made clear the global Muslim film talent is there, but the deep audience development work hasn’t been fully defined and when it has been done it is only at a country level. When TV shows that are globally viewed and loved like Ertugrul cannot be explained without understanding the global diasporic viewing patterns of Muslim communities. Of course, streaming as has been discussed recently by the likes of Christopher Nolan and Guillermo Del Toro, can lead to films disappearing since physical versions of most films on VHS or DVD are no longer made. So films can disappear especially if they have a message people don’t want to hear like in the recent film Stand (2022) about Mahmoud Abdul Rauf which was originally distributed on Showtime in the United States but then disappeared a few months after premier and cannot be found online anywhere now even for rent. Which Abdul Rauf and others believe is from pressure from the NBA.
If you have a film you think we should add to the list please tag us @GlobalMuslimLife on Twitter or Instagram or reply to this story below. As we think about building our own economies in this moment focused on Muslim-owned businesses we feature here the set of Muslim streaming services that have emerged over the last few years, Alchemiya, Muslim Kids TV, USHub, Durio+, and most recently Qalbox from Singapore.
In terms of the leading streaming platforms in the world, it is not surprising that Netflix is the leader in terms of Palestinian content because they have made the greatest investment in global audience development across languages around the world. What’s perhaps more surprising is how little Palestinian content is on the rest of the streaming platforms with Disney+ and its subsidiaries with zero films, Warner Brothers Max platform with one of the biggest content libraries with just a few television episodes featuring Palestinians on the entire platform. However, from an overall content analysis, the worst of these platforms is Amazon Prime, when you look at just the content available for free for Prime subscribers there are 2 films about Palestine and there are 9 film and television shows about Israel. This includes an entire television series about the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), called Life by the Sword.
Beyond the mainstream platforms in the United States, you can also find a good selection of Palestinian films for free on Kanopy if your local library is subscribed to the service. After the listing of our top films, you can find more details about the streaming services and their offerings on Palestinian films. The difficulty of this research is also that the different streaming platforms have different quality of use when it comes to searching through their content. This is especially true with platforms like Hulu, and Amazon Prime which is nearly impossible to search.
The most comprehensive film database we have seen about Palestine can be found at PalestineCinema.com
Also, check out the Palestine Film Institute which features new films every week and has a screening room right now for films about Gaza.
AJ+ Documentaries — ‘It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Escaping South’
In the current genocide unfolding in Gaza, the best coverage has been mostly on social media with reporters like Bisan Owda reporting daily on TikTok and Instagram. AJ+ has done the best job of working with these on-the-ground producers as well as with the mother ship Al Jazeera. In this short documentary, “Bisan Owda documented her journey from al-Shifa Hospital to southern #Gaza as she tried to find a new place to shelter. Along her journey, she spoke with elderly people on the road, injured children, and a doctor about diseases. #Israel has ordered an evacuation to the south but has continued bombing there. The UN says nearly all of Gaza is on the verge of starvation.”
Mawtini — An Ode to Palestine
Directed by Justin Mashouf / 2023/ 5 Minutes
This beautiful ode to Gaza was put together with a group of artists who were all attending the Mosquers Film Festival in Edmonton, two months ago as the bombing of Gaza began. Experience this rendition of soulful ‘Mawtini’ — a poetic homage to Palestinian homeland by Ibrahim Tuqan. “Mawtini” is something we all can relate to as humans. We long for home when we’re away for too long. We seek a place to call “home” mentally, spiritually and physically. We associate feelings, memories, smells, sites, sounds and tastes with “home”. Thank you to Anas Hasan, Narcy, Timaj Garad, Binta, Raz Hyder, The Mosquers Film Festival, Amine Bouzaher, Justin Mashouf, Lost Poet Studios, GAMA, Umar Atallah, Abbas Mohamed, Darien Hafiz and Karim Jabbari, for contributing to this cover and coming together to support Palestine.
The Present (Al-hadiya)
Directed by Farah Nabulsi / 2020 / 24 Minutes / Stream on USHub & Netflix
The Present is one of the most effective films to show anyone who may not understand the daily abuse and indignity faced by Palestinian people. On his wedding anniversary, Yusef and his young daughter set out in the West Bank to buy his wife a gift. Between soldiers, segregated roads and checkpoints, how easy would it be to go shopping?
I Am From Palestine
Directed by Iman Zawahry / 2023 / 6 Minutes / Stream on YouTube & Muslim Kids TV
Based on the book: Baba What Does My Name Mean? A Journey to Palestine, I am From Palestine is a powerful short animated children’s film directed by Iman Zawahry. As Saamidah, a young Palestinian-American girl, anxiously starts her first day of school, she finds her identity in question when faced with a world map that doesn’t include her homeland.
The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh
Sharif Abdel Kouddous & Laila Al-Arian / Al Jazeera / 2022 / 38 Minutes
On May 11, 2022, Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was reporting from the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank when an Israeli soldier shot and killed her. The Israeli military would eventually admit it was “possible” she was killed by their fire. But Abu Akleh was also an American citizen and her killing has brought into sharp focus the United States’s handling of her case. In The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, Fault Lines spoke with witnesses from that day and took questions to the White House and State Department about whether the US will investigate her shooting.
Pray Beyond Borders
Directed by Mustafa Dustin Craun / 2024 (forthcoming) / Feature Length Documentary / Short film version available on Alchemiya and Vimeo
In 2019 we captured the unique relationship between the Border Church and Border Mosque who shared ceremonial space at Friendship Park at the U.S. / Mexico border for more than a year. At the end of 2019, we drove Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib into Mexico for her first visit to the border and she almost immediately started crying as the scene of the border unfolding around us reminded her of visiting her family in Palestine.
The film is deeply tied to what’s happening in Palestine right now as the film closes with Congresswoman Rashida on the beach next to the border wall. She started talking to a cameraman who had been photographing the wall for 30 years. He told us the story on camera about how the head of the border patrol who built the border wall in the US retired and went as a consultant to build the wall for the state of Israel.
Gaza Fights for Freedom
Director Abby Martin / 2019 / 84 Minutes / Stream on YouTube
Filmed during the height of the Great March Of Return protests, it features exclusive footage of demonstrations where 200 unarmed civilians have been killed by Israeli snipers since March 30, 2018.
Salt of This Sea
Directed by Annemarie Jacir / 2008 / 109 Minutes / Featured length drama / Streaming on Netflix & Kanopy
Starring the legendary Palestinian poet and actress Suheir Hammad, Salt of This Sea is one of our favorite films on the list. “Born in Brooklyn to Palestinian refugee parents, Soraya decides to journey to the country of her ancestry when she discovers that her grandfather’s savings have been frozen in a Jaffa bank account since the nakba in 1948. She will soon find, however, that her simple plan is a complicated undertaking.”
Off Frame AKA Revolution Until Victory
Directed by Mohanad Yaqubi / 2016 / Streaming Exclusively on USHub
Off Frame AKA Revolution Until Victory is a meditation on the Palestinian people’s struggle to produce an image and self-representation on their own terms in the 1960s and 1970s, with the establishment of the Palestine Film Unit as part of the PLO. Unearthing films stored in archives across the world after an unprecedented research and access, the film begins with popular representations of modern Palestine and traces the works of militant filmmakers in reclaiming image and narrative through revolutionary and militant cinema. In resurrecting a forgotten memory of struggle, Off Frame reanimates what is within the frame, but also weaves a critical reflection by looking for what is outside it, or what is off frame.
Farha
Directed by Darin J. Sallam / 2021 / Historical Drama / Stream on Netflix
Farha is a powerful historical dramatization of the original nakba in 1948, told through the eyes of a 14-year-old Palestinian girl locked inside a pantry as catastrophe consumes her home. The film is so powerful that the government of Israel tried to have it removed from Netflix.
5 Broken Cameras
Directed by Emad Burnat & Guy Davidi / 2011 / 94 Minutes / Feature Length Documentary / Stream on Tubi
5 Broken Cameras is a first-hand account of protests in Bil’in, Bil’in a village in a West Bank village affected by the Israeli apartheid wall. The documentary was shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son. In 2009 Israeli co-director Guy Davidi joined the project. Structured around the destruction of Burnat’s cameras, the filmmakers’ collaboration follows one family’s evolution over five years of turmoil. It was nominated for best documentary film at the Oscars in 2013.
The Fourth World War
Directed by Rick Rowley / 2004 / Feature Length Documentary / Too radical for most streamers, find it online here & Kanopy
Featuring poetry and narrated by Suheir Hammad and Michael Franti, The Fourth World War is a classic of radical cinema bringing together struggles from around the world in the face of global war and neoliberalism. “From the front lines of conflicts in Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, Palestine, Korea, ‘the North’ from Seattle to Genova, and the ‘War on Terror’ in New York, Afghanistan, and Iraq. It is the story of men and women around the world who resist being annihilated in this war.”
Palestine 1920: The Other Side of the Palestinian Story
Al Jazeera / 2022 / 47 Minutes / Historical Documentary
“A land without a people, and a people without a land” is how the relationship between Palestine and the Jewish people was described by Christian writers in the 1800s. And the 20th-century history of the Middle East has largely been written through these eyes. But this film from Al Jazeera Arabic looks at Palestine from a different angle. It hears from historians and witness accounts, and features archive documents that show Palestine as a thriving province of Greater Syria and the Ottoman Empire at the dawn of the 20th century. The evidence suggests that its cities had a developing trade and commercial sector, growing infrastructure, and embryonic culture that would enable it to meet the challenges of the decades ahead. However, the political ramifications of the Balfour Declaration, San Remo Conference, and British Mandate set in motion a series of events that profoundly affected this vibrant, fledgling society and led to the events of 1948 and beyond. This film is the other side of the Palestinian story.
Qalbox has all their films on Palestine streaming for free now, including One Night in Al-Aqsa
One Night in Al Aqsa
Director Abrar Hussain / 2019 / 88 minutes / Feature Length Documentary / Streaming on Qalbox, USHub
Discover the awe-inspiring story of the Al Aqsa Compound in Jerusalem, set against the backdrop of the holiest night in the Islamic calendar. Al Aqsa is one of the world's most revered Islamic holy sites but remains shrouded in mystery. This is a place where miracles, that helped define the religion of Islam, took place. Now, for the first time, experience the power of Al Aqsa, as told through the eyes of the people who live and work there. From the award-winning director of One Day in The Haram And the Oscar-nominated executive producer of The Look of Silence Comes with a new vision, offering a unique look at both the spiritual history, and the modern-day workings, of this most significant Islamic institution.
Bye Bye Tiberias
Directed by Lina Soualem / 2023/ 82 Minutes / Available for Rent at DocNYC
Director Lina Soualem traces the history of four generations of Palestinian women in her family by pointing the camera at her mother, actress Hiam Abbas, of Succession fame. In playfully recreating moments from Abbas’ life in Palestine, Soualem pays tribute to her mother while creating a record of the political and cultural issues of her lifetime.
Israelism
Directed by Erin Axelman & Sam Eilertsen/ 2023 / 84 Minutes / Available for a $5 rental fee at Kinema
When two young American Jews raised to unconditionally love Israel witness the way Israel treats Palestinians, their lives take sharp left turns. Their stories reveal a deepening generational divide over modern Jewish identity.
Made in Palestine
Directed by Mariam Dwedar / 2022 / 8 Minutes / Available exclusively on Alchemiya
A beautiful short film spotlight on Hirbawi Textiles in the city of Hebron — the last remaining factory in Palestine that produces the traditional and iconic Palestinian scarf known as the Kuffiyeh.
Mayor
Directed by David Osit / 2020 / 83 Minutes / Documentary / Streaming on Kanopy
MAYOR is a real-life political saga following Musa Hadid, the Christian mayor of Ramallah, during his second term in office. His immediate goals: repave the sidewalks, attract more tourism, and plan the city’s Christmas celebrations. His ultimate mission: to end the occupation of Palestine. Rich with detailed observation and a surprising amount of humor, MAYOR offers a portrait of dignity amidst the madness and absurdity of endless occupation while posing a question: how do you run a city when you don’t have a country?
Tantura
Directed by Alon Schwarz / 2022 / 94 Minutes / Documentary / For rent on Prime Video, Vimeo, or YouTube
Hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated in 1948. To Israelis, it was the War of Independence, to Palestinians it was ‘Al Nakba’ — the Catastrophe. Director Alon Schwarz revisits former Israeli soldiers as well as Palestinian residents in an effort to re-examine what happened in Tantura, the location of an alleged, Israeli-perpetrated massacre, and find out why ‘Al Nakba’ is still a taboo in Israeli society.
1948: Creation & Catastrophe
Directed by Andy Trimlett & Dr. Ahlam Muhtaseb / 2023 / 85 Minutes / Historical Documentary / Stream on YouTube
Through riveting and moving personal recollections of both Palestinians and Israelis, 1948: Creation & Catastrophe reveals the shocking events of the most pivotal year in the most controversial conflict in the world. It tells the story of the establishment of Israel as seen through the eyes of the people who lived it. But rather than being a history lesson, this documentary is a primer for the present. It is simply not possible to make sense of what is happening today without an understanding of 1948. This documentary was the last chance for many of its Israeli and Palestinian characters to narrate their first-hand accounts of the creation of a state and the expulsion of a nation. Hear stories from the Israelis and Palestinians who personally lived through events in Haifa, Jaffa, Dayr Yasin, Acre, Jerusalem, Ramla, Lydda and more. These shocking and dramatic events reveal the core of what drives the conflict today.
Saladin: The Conqueror of Jerusalem
Series Directed by Sedat Inci / 2023 / 190 Minutes (episode 1) / TV Series / Streaming on the Tabii YouTube Channel
This year the Turkish national broadcaster TRT launched Tabii, a global streaming network that lives on YouTube. TRT is famous for creating some of the most popular global TV shows in history like Ertegrul, and with the launch of TRT they have put out a ton of new shows about famous Muslim figures like Rumi, Shaykh Abdul Qadar Jilani, and most recently Saladin al Ayubi. With the first episode at over three hours long, it looks like Saladin will be another epic undertaking by TRT.
From Palestine-A 15 Part Doc Series
Documentary TV Series / Stream at Alchemiya
A documentary that tells the story of Palestine with all that constitutes it ranging from its nature, terrain, and spectacular climate as well as highlighting the most important historical and religious tourist landmarks, as well as the most renowned places of worship. This documentary series also narrates the history of the people of Palestine and their uprisings against the occupying forces as it explores the heritage, traditional attire, and customs of Palestine. It will also shed light on the rituals of people during religious holidays and their celebrations on national occasions.
The Battle of Algiers
Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo / 1966 / 121 Mintues / Third Cinema Classic Streaming on Netflix & Kanopy
The classic of decolonial third cinema about colonization in Algeria, the parallels in the film are clear to see, as the subtitle of Dr. Daulatzi’s book says, the past is prologue. Check out this talk on the 50th anniversary of the film by Sohail Daulatzai, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies and African American Studies at UC Irvine, presents his book Fifty Years of The Battle of Algiers: Past as Prologue following a screening of the film. The talk expounds on the legacy and influence the film has had on power and politics and anti-imperial struggles around the globe, from the Black Power and Chicano movements in the U.S. to the Palestinian liberation movement and IRA abroad.”
MC Abdul — Shouting at the Wall
Palestine Will Be Free — Jae Dee &
Directed by Sanshoots / 2023 / Exclusively on USHub
Jae Deen x Karter Zaher — Palestine Will Be Collaborating With USHUB. Directed By Sanshoots to raise awareness for the war against Gazans and to raise funds for Gazan Orphans donate here.
Humood — Falasteen Biladi
We will not forget — لن ننسى
Essam — Free Palestine
Somos Sur — Ana Tijoux ft. Shadia Mansour
Directed by Ana Tijoux
