Alternative Information Center

Leila Sansour will be present during the filmscreening.

The film:
In March 2002 Comedian Jeremy Hardy is approached by a Palestinian director who urges him to join a group of internationals, intent on doing their bit to solve the world’s longest-running conflict. Jeremy has always felt sympathy for the Palestinians but traveling thousands of miles to face the world's fourth biggest military power is not his idea of a holiday. On the other hand, neither is traveling to Florida to spend Easter with his in-laws so Palestine it is. What he doesn’t know, as he arrives in Tel-Aviv only a week later, is that he will become one of the most unlikely witnesses to a horrific yet seminal moment in the struggle of the Palestinian people

From the stand-off at Yasser Arafat's compound to the siege of the church of the Nativity, the film captures the birth of a new and unprecedented kind of political engagement – the phenomena of the International Solidarity Movement.

The director:
Born in Moscow to a Palestinian father and a Russian mother. Leila grew up in Bethlehem in the Occupied West Bank in the seventies as Israel began its policy of settling the occupied territories and arresting any Palestinian showing active political involvement. Leila has a Masters degree in philosophy. She has been living in London for the past twelve years working as a television producer, most recently with Al-Jazeera as the producer/director of a documentary series profiling the lives of prominent members of the Arab Diaspora in Britain and the US. Since the beginning of the second Intifada Leila has spent a lot of time filming in Palestine. Her latest film “Jeremy Hardy v. The Israeli Army” followed two other shorts made around the same subject: “Global Coverage” which played in Cannes as part of the “Quinzainne Realisateurs” programme in 2002 and “Human Shield”- a film that won The Columbine Award at the Moondance Film festival in May 2003. Leila intends to work in Palestine in the foreseeable future.

The AICafe is open on Tuesday and Saturday night from 7pm. It is located in the Alternative Information Center in Beit Sahour, close to Suq a Shaab square (follow the sign to Jadal Center) We have a small library with both novels and political books and magazines.
Phone number; 02 2775444