For a Palestinian cinema of its own - A decade of Palestinian Film Festival Amsterdam (PFFA)
More than two years after the outbreak of the genocide in Gaza, our perceptions of Palestine have been shaped largely by an endless circulation of apocalyptic images and videos across various media platforms. The live-streamed atrocities are so overwhelming that they often eclipse another reality: a culturally rich, dynamic, and lively Palestine – not just the land that falls victim to settler colonialism. Long before October 7th, a grassroots film festival emerged with the intention of telling more nuanced stories of Palestinian people and culture: the Palestinian Film Festival Amsterdam, known as PFFA.
A Missing Platform for Palestinian Cinema
In the past decades, Palestinian film and art have been receiving more and more international recognition. Several Palestinian artists have exhibited their works in Europe and in the UK, and have participated in numerous art Biennials; many Palestinian films have been shown in the Netherlands, particularly at IFFR and IDFA. However, what was missing in the Netherlands was an “actual” Palestinian film festival that platforms Palestinian voices.
It all started with Nihal, the founder and festival director, who has been working with Palestinian filmmakers since 1992. As a Palestinian with a background in film festival production, she noticed the lack of Palestinian directors in Palestinian film events coordinated in the Netherlands. What was rather dominated then were mostly activist documentaries made by non-Palestinian amateur directors. As the films shown were often shot by handheld cameras, the Palestinian artistic voices and stories became eclipsed. Acknowledging the underrepresentation of a Palestinian cinema – one that is made by Palestinians – Nihal founded the PFFA in 2015.
From grassroots to institution: A brief history of PFFA
The commitment to Palestinian cinema has been intentional since the very first edition in 2015, themed Contemporary Palestinian Cinema. Initially a grassroots film festival, this edition was a one-day festival held in two locations, completely self-financed by Nihal. Although there had already been the Palestinian Filmday in Hilversum at that point, what PFFA brought was completely different. While the former was more concerned with the Palestinian activism through the means of cinema, PFFA drew attention to Palestinian cinema itself, with different thematic concepts revolving around Palestinian art and culture. The first edition kicked off this goal with a focus on the work of contemporary – primarily female – Palestinian filmmakers with works ranging between 2012 and 2015, since many Palestinian films that people were most familiar with dated as far back to the mid-nineties.
Following the inaugural edition was the 2020 edition of PFFA, themed Cinema of the Palestinian Revolution, with the intention to revive the festival and make it an annual event. Expanding the thematic scopes of the festival, this edition focused on militant Palestinian filmmaking and women’s movements through engagement with archival materials. This curatorial choice was deeply rooted in the national history of cinema itself. Most of the films shown were documentaries and shorts dating back to the 1970s, which were restored after 25 years of being lost from Palestinian Film Unit's archives – either looted by the Israeli army or otherwise mysteriously disappearing. These works were once the vanguards of a new era in Palestinian cinema, decades later transformed into cult classics. There were also contemporary documentaries and fictional films about life under the occupation, where Palestinian people work to cobble together their nearly shattered culture and history from bits and pieces that remain. The work of PFFA in these early years thus brought more attention to the multilayered and nuanced reality that Palestinian cinema can represent.
However, just as the history of Palestinian cinema is full of disruptions and discontinuities, PFFA endured a hiatus of three years due to COVID. It was during this long break that Nihal reconsidered how the PFFA had been organised until then. Although the previous two editions had been very successful, the cost of production in 2020 was significantly higher, which made self-financing extremely precarious. “It did not make sense to privately fund a festival if it was going to cause financial distress to the Palestinian curator when the Dutch host was commercially profiting from it,” Nihal shared. After the pandemic, with the funding from the Amsterdam Funds for the Arts (AFK) and a crowdfunding campaign, PFFA came back with the 2023 edition more professionally executed. This paved the way for 2024, which marked the very first edition with the festival officially operating as a foundation, with a programme screened at five different venues. “This was a pivotal moment to continue developing PFFA into a respected cultural institution in The Netherlands,” Nihal shared of her vision.
Culture Beyond the Screen
As PFFA continues to grow and become more widely known, the festival has also expanded its scope into more varied fields of art and cultural experience. For example, the third edition in 2023, themed 75 Years Al Nakba, introduced parallel events to the festival, starting with an olive oil tasting session, which has become a recurring tradition in the subsequent editions. Following this, the 2024 edition brought the film programme themed around Dissident Voices & Queer Palestinian Cinema, presented alongside with poetry recitals, panel discussions, and artisan souks. By 2025, these parallel events became an integral part of the programme – with, for example, dialogue sessions between Sakir Khader and Dina Mimi, as well as a sold-out culinary keynote delivered by Laila El-Haddad.
These fringe events, too, present Palestine not as purely a political entity but as a vibrant and revolutionary culture with rich histories and diverse human experience. Nadia, a Palestinian woman who has been volunteering at PFFA for two years, found the olive oil tasting to be a new experience that was also endearingly connected to her roots. “I learned how to describe olive oil: the acidity, the sharpness… that's something I didn't know how to do before,” she shared. On an affective and cultural level, what the experience carries is the connection between Palestinian people and their lands: the respect, love, and nurturing that they give to nature – and vice versa. “But then Israel came and destroyed a lot of olive trees. It's so painful for us to see because those were very old trees that had lived to be hundreds of years old – even older than the existence of the state of Israel,” Nadia said. The olive oil tasting, therefore, is not just a new experience of a daily food ingredient, but it is situated in a long history of human-nature mutual care that weaves the symbiotic existence of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian land, against the exploitative relation to nature that is symptomatic of Western imperialism.
Reimagining Gaza, Images, and History
The interconnection between a mere cup of olive oil and the historical struggle of Palestinians on their own land under the occupation may make us wonder about the political aspect of a Palestinian film festival. Right after October 7th, people started paying attention more keenly to the cruelty that had long been happening in Palestine since 1948 – and, needless to say, the public focus was on Gaza. The 2024 edition, despite being held one year after the event, was not about Gaza per se. This was mainly because the theme, Queer Palestinian Cinema, had already been carefully conceived and programmed well in advance. More fundamentally, it is embedded in PFFA’s vision to dedicate to Palestinian cinema and filmmakers, rather than presenting a political reaction.
Gaza is thereby presented not as a destroyed land that has come to its end, but rather as within a dimension of possibilities, not fully defined but nevertheless real – in another world, a virtuality
The 2025 edition of PFFA was when Gaza fully became the central focus of the festival. However, it was not built just on what had been happening in Gaza, but more on the very representation of that: the blurred vision, distorted truths, claims, and dystopian images. The title Virtual Remains is inspired by Azza El-Hassan’s concept of “visual remains,” which connotes the possibilities of artistic reconfiguration of photos, film and media equipment that have survived looting and destruction1. This is well captured by the experimental films of Kamal Aljafari, the director in focus of this edition, featuring image manipulation and overt re-editing, captured either by camera or via archival footage, as a means of interrupting and transcending the rigid history of Palestine as written by Western imperialism and its representation of Palestine as a land without a people. Thus, these films transform the images of ruins of an invaded territory into an abstraction that surpasses the forces that imprison and destroy the land of Palestine2. Gaza is thereby presented not as a destroyed land that has come to its end, but rather as within a dimension of possibilities, not fully defined but nevertheless real – in another world, a virtuality.
The focus on Gaza was addressed in different ways throughout the parallel events – as vast and open as the virtuality is. Gaza could be manifested through forms of grief and practices related to trauma, intertwined with talks and workshops at Jakoozi by movement artist Camille Barton and dance therapist Ahmed Shark Alghariz. It could also be invoked by the practice of creative resistance, as exemplified in the special workshop at Framer Framed by London-based poet and playwright Ahmed Masoud. It could be even embedded in objects themselves – the tatreez3, showcased in three different types of events. First was Stitching Palestine (2017), a documentary by Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi about how Palestinian women’s memories, lives, and identities are connected through embroidery. These two directors also engaged in a special talk at De Appel on embroidery, textile tradition, and embodied knowledge transmission. The third event was a hybrid workshop at Framer Framed led by artist and cultural practitioner Hilda Moucharrafieh, in collaboration with the founders of Darza Studio, who joined via video call from Jerusalem. Here, the political lies not in reiterating devastation in Gaza, but in the artistic and curatorial practices that preserve complexity, open space for reimagining Palestinian histories and cinema as planes of possibility rather than finality.
Toward a future of possibilities
Within one decade of showcasing Palestinian cinema and other cultural events, PFFA has continuously expanded the scope of their work in both range (diversity of events) and depth (thematic sophistication). Throughout the years, the festival has been showing works by emerging filmmakers who went on to garner international acclaim, among them being Annemarie Jacir, Cherien Dabis, Mohamed Jabaly, Rashid Masharawi, Azza El-Hassan, Kamal Aljafari and Khaled Jarrar. Yet, despite its success so far, PFFA has been an official foundation for only two years, so there may be more changes coming in the next few years still. Beside the unforeseeable aspects, Nihal shares with us a sneak-peek into PFFA’s future plan. The next edition would be in April 2027, which will likely feature an art performance by Ahmad Mallah, who previously joined the 2025 edition for an arts-based panel discussion together with Yazan Khalili and Noor Abuarafeh. While this does mean that there will be no edition in 2026, there will still be many fringe events happening along the way. For example, the feature film Palestine 36 (2025), which screened at IFFR, will be brought to Amsterdam this year in a collaboration between PFFA and Lab111. While the long-standing Retro Palestine will not remain a monthly recurring event, it will make an occasional comeback with collaborations in between festival dates.
The past ten years of PFFA have also been a long journey for Nihal herself, as the festival director. On this note, Nihal shared: “After a decade of launching a festival that has gone through many incarnations, it is healthy for an organisation to pass the director’s seat to a new person, but I will not do that until I find a Palestinian who understands the festival’s vision.” This moment of reflection and anticipation marks not a pause, but a recalibration, rooted in care, continuity, and responsibility. As the PFFA looks ahead, its future appears shaped not only by expansion and collaboration, but by a steadfast commitment to safeguarding Palestinian voices on their own terms.
1) See more about Azza El-Hassan’s research in her monograph “The Afterlife of Palestinian Images.” Palgrave Studies in Arab Cinema, 2024.
2) See more about the vision of Kamal Aljafari’s works at: kamalaljafari.art/About.
3) A form of traditional Palestinian embroidery, meaning "embroidery" in Arabic.
4) Retro Palestine is a monthly event that screens 77 films from the 10-year archive of the PFFA.