Palestinian Independent Film Festival 2025
https://www.neme.org/projects/hosted/piff-2025
We shall remain as long as thyme and olive trees remain.
With these words as its guiding, the Palestinian Independent Film Festival (PIFF) returns for its 2nd edition, taking place June 13–15, 2025, in Limassol (Cyprus), Agios Nikolaos, and Chania (Crete).
This year’s edition is more urgent and meaningful than ever. In the face of the ongoing catastrophic events in Gaza, the widening repression across the West Bank, and the continued erasure of Palestinian life and memory, PIFF stands as a cultural response — an act of resistance, remembrance, and collective truth-telling.
This year’s edition will be shorter and more focused, featuring four powerful feature films over three days — each selected to tell the story of Palestine from multiple angles. The programme highlights narratives from Gaza, the West Bank, and the occupied 1948 territories, exploring the realities, struggles, and resistance of Palestinians across these regions. All films are directed by Palestinian filmmakers, both from within Palestine and the diaspora, offering authentic voices and deeply rooted perspectives that challenge silencing and amplify truth through cinema.
This year’s festival is a dedication to the life and work of Dorgham Qreiqe, a courageous artist and humanitarian from Gaza. Dorgham devoted his final year to bringing light, joy, and hope to children enduring unimaginable circumstances, organising film screenings, art workshops, and theatre performances in refugee camps. He believed, as we do, in the power of art to heal, resist, and envision a better future. On March 18th, 2025, Dorgham was killed, along with almost his entire family, in an Israeli airstrike on their home in North Gaza. We followed his journey closely, supported him however we could, and now honour his life, his work, and his unwavering spirit by dedicating this edition of the festival to him.
PIFF remains a non-profit, volunteer-driven initiative — grounded in the belief that art should be accessible to all and rooted in the people it represents. Screenings are free of charge and open to everyone.
The festival in Limassol will be hosted by the NeMe Arts Centre, and Mitos.
NeMe will host one film on Saturday, 14 June 2025, 7:30pm.
Lyd, 2024. Dir. Rami Younis and Sarah Ema Friedland
Executively produced by Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, and made across production houses in the UK, the US, and Palestine, Lyd is perhaps best described as a speculative documentary, which combines real facts with dream-like sequences that envision a new reality for the city.
Lyd is a speculative documentary that follows the rise and fall of Lyd — a 5,000-year-old metropolis that was once a bustling Palestinian town until it was conquered when the State of Israel was established in 1948. As the film unfolds, a chorus of characters creates a tapestry of the Palestinian experience of this city and the trauma left by the massacre and expulsion, while vivid animations envision an alternate reality where the same characters live free from the trauma of the past and the violence of the present. Using never-before-seen archival footage of the Israeli soldiers who carried out the massacre and expulsion, the personified city explains that these events were so devastating that they fractured reality, and now there are two Lyds — one occupied and one free. As the film cuts between fantastical and documentary realities, it ultimately leaves the viewer questioning which future should prevail. Lyd dares to ask the question: what would the city be like had the Israeli occupation of Lyd never happened?
Made by a Palestinian from Lyd and a Jewish American, Lyd provides much-needed context for this moment, as it goes deep into the history of the Nakba from the perspective of Palestinians who survived. The film imagines an alternate reality where Palestine was never occupied and Palestinians of all religions (Muslims, Christians, and Jews) live in a liberated Palestine. Narrated by Palestinian actress Maisa Abd Elhadi who personifies the city, the viewer is guided through the lifespan of a five-thousand-year-old city and its residents.
Mitos will be sceening the following films:
Friday, 13 June 2025, 7:30pm
A state of passion, 2024. Dir. Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi
Sunday, 15 June 2025, 7:30pm
Janin, Jenin, 2024. Dir. Mohammad Bakri
Bye Bye Tiberias, 2023. Dir. Lina Soualem
All films will be screened with English subtitles.
Credits
Curator : Jafra Abu Zoulouf
Festival directors: Jafra Abu Zoulouf (Limassol) , Lisa Fras (Crete)
Organisers and collaborators:
Social Center – centre of migrants “Steki” of Chania – Crete
The Initiative for Solidarity with the Resisting Palestine of Chania – Crete
The Antiracism Committee of Agios Nikolaos – Crete
Supported by Athens Palestinian Film Festival (APFF) and Dounias Greece
