Join the Toronto Palestine Film Festival for a powerful and urgent special event. Through films and discussion, this program confronts the ongoing realities of settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing in Palestine, bridging the trauma of the 1948 Nakba with the live-streamed genocide of Palestinians today.
This event invites audiences to bear witness, engage critically, and stand in solidarity. Our esteemed experts, Michael Lynk, Wadie Said and Esmat ElHalaby will discuss present day challenges Palestinians, and allies, are experiencing in their advocacy work. In the course of their discussion they will:
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outline the manifestations of Nakba denial perpetuated by governments and public institutions to silence and erase Palestinians;
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dismantle the attacks and smears against those who use the term “genocide” by explaining how genocide is the correct term to use to describe what is happening in Gaza;
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Describe how constitutionally protected rights are being eroded by the state in an attempt to stop Palestinian advocacy by understanding what is currently happening in the United States.
This timely event comes after the federal election where many in the newly elected government refused to use the term genocide, do not recognize the Nakba and pledged to criminalize Palestinian protests.
TPFF’s annual Nakba event is not just a commemoration—it’s a call to action against injustice and erasure, and a celebration of Palestinian resilience and resistance.
Short Films: ‘It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive’ by AJ+ “Executions and Mass Graves in Tantura” by Forensic Architecture.
Copresented by Urban Studies, Hearing Palestine and Arab Canadian Lawyers Association.
Speakers Bios
Wadie Said is Professor of Law at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His work explores the human rights impacts of criminal and immigration enforcement, and he is the author of Crimes of Terror. Before becoming an academic, Professor Said clerked for a federal judge, served as an assistant federal public defender in Florida and worked in private practice. He recently joined key voices in marking the reissue of Edward Said’s The Question of Palestine.
Michael Lynk is Professor Emeritus of Law at Western University and served as the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine from 2016 to 2022. He has written extensively on labour law and international human rights, including co-authoring Protecting Human Rights in Occupied Palestine. He was involved in the landmark International Court of Justice opinion on the illegality of Israel’s occupation on Palestine.
Esmat Elhalaby is a historian of colonialism and anti-colonialism. He is an Assistant Professor of Transnational History at the University of Toronto. His first book, Parting Gifts of Empire: Palestine and India at the Dawn of Decolonization, is forthcoming from the University of California Press in September 2025.
Moderator: Dania Majid, Toronto Palestine Film Festival programmer and president of the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association.
Short Films:
‘It’s Bisan from Gaza and I’m Still Alive’ by AJ+ (8min)
Bisan Owda, a 25 year old Gazan, is documenting Israel’s relentless bombing of the Gaza Strip on her mobile phone. It’s a stark reality to her life from a month ago when she was living her dream of being a storyteller, showcasing Palestinian life and culture. Now, she posts videos from inside hospitals and in the streets of Gaza to document the struggles of each day. Bisan and her family are among more than 1 million Gazans who have been forced to flee their homes. She documented her month for AJ+. The film won an Emmy last year despite a campaign against the film’s nomination.
“Executions and Mass Graves in Tantura” by Forensic Architecture (17min)
On the night of 22-23 May 1948, one week after the establishment of the State of Israel, the Palestinian fishing village of Tantura was attacked and occupied by the 33rd Battalion of the Alexandroni Brigade, later made part of the Israeli army. Within hours of occupying the village, Israeli forces and intelligence units conducted a systematic massacre of disarmed Palestinian fighters and civilians. Commissioned by the Haifa-based legal centre Adalah, Forensic Architecture conducted a comprehensive analysis of the available cartographic, testimonial, and photographic evidence related to the Palestinian village of Tantura before and after the 1948 war.