Kassem Hawal

Return to Haifa is based on Kanafani’s novel the plot of which takes place in 1967, when Palestinian refugees living in the newly occupied territories had an opportunity to visit the places from which they had been expelled in 1948.

In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and occupied its capital, Beirut. The film is a rare example of a PLO film made after the PLO’s departure from Beirut. It documents the burned and destroyed cultural and educational centers from which Israelis stole films, photographs, and historical and contemporary manuscripts. It includes interviews with key members of the Palestinian cultural scene such as Mahmoud Darwish and Ismail Shammout and those in charge of cultural and educational centers that were destroyed.

Beshar, a famous singer, is summoned to perform at his country's dictator's birthday party. But on the way to the presidential palace, his car breaks down and he arrives late. He immediately faces the dictator's wrath, the first incident in a strange evening where the leader's tyranny will have dire consequences for some of the guests. Between forced cheerfulness and silent terror, everyone knows they are at the mercy of the mood of a grotesque host with unlimited power...

An important documentary based on a speech by Comrade George Habash, the Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on the first anniversary of the Martyrdom of Comrade Ghassan Kanafani. Through this speech the film shows the political position of the Front and the position of the masses towards the question of proposed settlement, as well as the role of the masses in pursuing the armed struggle against the imperialist-Zionist-reactionary enemy.

Documentary produced by PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine).

Baghdad Outside Baghdad is based on the Gilgamesh Sumerian legend, set in the first decades of the 20th century and told with a realistic and human hold. The story portraits six different stories that in different ways reflects the intellectual and cultural life in Iraq in that period, a period that fostered great poets and singers. The film presents six figures from this period through easy going as well as melancholic perspectives, while they live as strangers in their homeland and slowly move towards death. Gilgamesh is constantly present in the story, and as set in the historical epic portrayal, watchful and fearful of the death. Baghdad Outside Baghdad is outermost a historical portrait of Iraq.

In one of the popular neighborhoods in Baghdad, a disaster unfolds as a group of old houses collapses, causing a tragedy among the impoverished residents. A journalist endeavors to uncover the reasons behind this catastrophe. He discovers that Abu Fahad had constructed the house with non-compliant specifications, leading to its collapse. The journalist writes an investigative piece for the newspaper he works for, but the authorities remain unresponsive. He comes to realize that behind Abu Fahad, there is a wealthy and influential figure shielding him from legal accountability.

A documentary on the Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, who died July 8th, 1972 after American and Israeli intelligence services placed explosives in his car while he was on his way to «AI Hadaf» newspaper, of which he was the editor.

In a suspenseful and dramatic setting, the story unfolds around a night guard who develops feelings for a beautiful widow in the neighborhood he watches over during the night. In the same residence, a painter resides who creates a painting for her. Believing there is a connection between the painter and the widow, the night guard proposes to her, but she rejects him. Subsequently, a burglary occurs in the house, resulting in the theft of the painting. However, a fire breaks out in the night guard's own house, ultimately aiding in the revelation of his crime.

The Marshes area is a cultural extension of the Sumerian civilization by more than seven thousand years. It is the largest ecosystem of its kind in the Middle East and West Asia and constitute two-thirds of southern Iraq. In the year 1975, director Kassem Hawal decided to make a film about the Iraqi Marshes. He then wrote the script, shot the film and completed a 45 minutes documentary. But in 1985 the Iraqi regime had begun to dry it, resulting in humanitarian, cultural, environmental and natural disasters in the area with the disappearance of tens of thousands of residents, air, water and soil pollution and the extinction of countless species of birds, plants and animals. The Government have also burned the original film material, luckily, Kassem kept a copy to share it with the world.

Like a blurry watercoulor, the Euphrates painted the lands he touches with the shades of exile.

Iraqi writer and director Kassem Hawal’s 24 minute film Our Small Houses is one of the few surviving works made by the cinema group Hawal founded and led under the Central Information Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Badly damaged and often overlooked in histories of revolutionary film, it combines lucid Marxist-Leninist analyses with striking montage techniques.