The films highlight Palestinian themes of resilience amid displacement and exile and grief and family within diaspora communities.

The Palestine Film Institute (PFI) announced on Wednesday that two films supported by the Doha Film Institute (DFI) won awards at the 2024 Docs-in-Progress/Palestine showcase as part of the Cannes Film Festival’s Cannes Docs programme.

The two films are “The Myth of Mahmoud,” releasing in the end of this year, and “My Father’s House,” which will release next January.

The announcement coincides with the PFI entering a cooperation with Watermelon Pictures, a Palestinian-owned independent film distribution, production and financing company. As part of this collaboration, “The Myth of Mahmoud,” produced by Shaima Al Tamimi, will receive a grant of $2,500.

The film follows the story of Mayar Jamal Hamdan, who co-directed alongside Al Tamimi, and her maternal family, whose residency in Qatar spans six decades. 

Hamdan, a visual artist and writer, is of Palestinian descent.

The film explores themes of grief and unlawful displacement within the Palestinian diaspora through Hamdan’s mother, Amal, who is grappling with the loss of her residency sponsor, Mahmoud Said, Hamdan’s grandfather.

Taking to Instagram, Hamdan thanked the PFI for “the opportunity to represent Palestine at Cannes this year.”

The film also received an award for colour grading by the Film Lab Palestine organisation at Cannes.

Father-son bond

Mahdi Fleifel’s “My Father’s House” received a $5,000 Cannes Docs Hiventy Post-Production in-kind award. The film follows his return to the Danish town of Elsinore where he grew up, nine years after his father’s death.

Key themes in the film include exile, memory and the bond between father and son.

A DFI synopsis of the film revealed that after Fleifel’s father passed away, he discovered a treasure trove of photographs from his father’s youth and boxes filled with videotapes from the last 11 years of his life. 

Fleifel also discovered films from his father’s 2009 pilgrimage to Mecca and recalled a conversation where his father expressed that wanted the footage to someday be shown to his son.

In light of the brutal aftermath since October 7, whereby the Gaza Ministry of Health reports that Israel’s indiscriminate war has killed at least 35,709 Palestinians and left a further 79,990 wounded, the PFI highlighted the urgency to amplify Palestinian voices.

“The months since October 2023 have underlined the great struggle we face as Palestinians to merely exist,” the institute wrote. “Against the backdrop of the current genocide, it has never been more urgent for Palestinian filmmaking to be platformed as a space of creative resistance, exchange and dialogue.”