London Palestine Film Festival 2025
November 14 - 28
Palestinians have endured systemic displacement, dispossession and violence over generations. Choosing hope over despair, in the face of occupation, they continue to choose life and teach life.
London Palestine Film Festival (LPFF) 2025 screened a curated selection of films that bear witness to these realities and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, sharing the voices of those affected and cultivating understanding and dialogue about the resilience and lived experiences of Gaza's people.
The need to bear witness was palpable. We opened with The Voice of Hind Rajab, the urgent and harrowing work by Oscar–nominated Kaouther Ben Hania, selling out the film three times and contributing to a total of 15 sold-out screenings across the festival run. Returning to 9 cinemas across London with some of this year’s most anticipated releases on the big screen, the 2025 edition expanded beyond the capital, with two screenings in Liverpool.
Featuring some of 2025’s most anticipated releases on the big screen — including UK Premiere of Once Upon a Time in Gaza, the hard-edged fiction drama from Gaza-born film-making brothers Arab and Tarzan Nasser, and The Mission, capturing the raw, brutal reality of Gaza’s operating rooms — LPFF 2025 concluded with a simultaneous screening of All That’s Left of You, Jordan’s official submission to the Academy Awards®, alongside a series of shorts exploring the very act of bearing witness — presenting a sonic and visual meditation on life in and beyond Gaza.
Across 15 days, we sold over 4,000 tickets for more than 30 films. We also hosted crucial Q&As, guided discussions and art workshops, encouraging dialogue and engagement beyond the screen. These films reached an even larger audience through press coverage, from Nowness, Time Out, and Film London, to Vogue Arabia, TRT World and The New Arab.
THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB +SCREEN TALK
Friday 14 November | 20:30 | BARBICAN CINEMA 1
OPENING NIGHT
January 29, 2024. Red Crescent volunteers receive an emergency call. A 6-year-old girl is trapped in a car under fire in Gaza, pleading for rescue. While trying to keep her on the line, they do everything they can to get an ambulance to her.
YALLA PARKOUR +COLLAGE WORKSHOP
Saturday 15 November | 14:00 | THE GARDEN CINEMA
A childhood visit to Gaza leaves a lasting memory of the sea and a mother’s smile. Years later, a video of youth practicing parkour amid ruins rekindles a longing for home.
THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB +SCREEN TALK
Saturday 15 November | 18:20 | CURZON SOHO
January 29, 2024. Red Crescent volunteers receive an emergency call. A 6-year-old girl is trapped in a car under fire in Gaza, pleading for rescue. While trying to keep her on the line, they do everything they can to get an ambulance to her.
THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB
Saturday 15 November | 21:20 | CURZON SOHO
January 29, 2024. Red Crescent volunteers receive an emergency call. A 6-year-old girl is trapped in a car under fire in Gaza, pleading for rescue. While trying to keep her on the line, they do everything they can to get an ambulance to her.
With Hasan in gaza +screen talk
Sunday 16 November | 13:00 | ICA
Rediscovered MiniDV tapes from Gaza in 2001 send Kamal Aljafari on a road‑trip in search for a prison‑mate from 1989. He creates a cinematic reflection on memory and erasure, capturing a Gaza of the past and lives that may never be found again.
PALESTINE 36
Sunday 16 November | 17:40 | CURZON SOHO
Palestine’s Official Submission for the Academy Awards® is set in 1936 Mandatory Palestine. Yusuf flees his rural home for Jerusalem’s charged streets, forced to confront colonial rule, rising migration and the inexorable drift toward a defining revolt.
THE PALESTINE EXCEPTION +SCreen talk
Monday 17 November | 18:45 | GENESIS CINEMA
The Palestine Exception unfolds as a story of college campuses as sites of both rebellion and repression, places where personal and collective histories converge in unexpected ways.
[liverpool] A STATE OF PASSION
Monday 17 November | 19:00 | FACT LIVERPOOL
After 43 horrific days working under constant bombardment in Gaza’s hospitals, British‑Palestinian reconstructive surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah emerged to find himself as a face of Palestinian resistance.
THANK YOU FOR BANKING WITH US!
Monday 17 November | 20:45 | BARBICAN CINEMA 1
When their father dies, two sisters must get their hands on the inheritance before their brother finds out and claims half of the money.
SONG OF ALL ENDS +SCREEN TALK
Tuesday 18 November | 18:20 | BERTHA DOCHOUSE
2021, Beirut. Sixteen months after the Beirut port explosion, a family in the Shatila Refugee Camp struggles to heal in the aftermath of tragedy.
THE TANK AND THE OLIVE TREE
Tuesday 18 November | 20:00 | SANDS FILMS STUDIO
The history of Palestine, from its beginnings up until today, is far from what the media calls ‘the Israel-Palestine conflict’. The Tank and the Olive Tree is a primordial clarification based on factual and incontestable elements.
SKATEPAL DOUBLE BILL +SCREEN TALK
Wednesday 19 November | 18:45 | GENESIS CINEMA
Filmed a decade apart, two powerful titles trace the rise of skateboarding in Palestine, from its grassroots birth under occupation to one athlete’s journey of resistance on the road to the Olympic qualifiers.
UK PREMIERE: Once Upon a Time in Gaza
Thursday 20 November | 20:45 | BARBICAN CINEMA 1
Gaza, 2007. A young student befriends a charismatic restaurant owner with a big heart. Together, they peddle drugs while delivering falafel sandwiches, but they are soon forced to grapple with a corrupt cop and his oversized ego.
second screening: once upon a time in gaza
Friday 21 November | 20:00 | RIVERSIDE STUDIOS
Gaza, 2007. A young student befriends a charismatic restaurant owner with a big heart. Together, they peddle drugs while delivering falafel sandwiches, but they are soon forced to grapple with a corrupt cop and his oversized ego.
AYOUNI
+SCREEN TALK
Saturday 22 November | 14:00 | ICA
A six-year journey across countries follows two women searching for their forcibly disappeared loved ones in Syria, transforming silence into a powerful call for justice and remembrance.
UK PREMIERE: The Mission +SCREEN TALK
Sunday 23 November | 17:40 | CURZON SOHO
In the darkest days of the ongoing Palestinian genocide, acclaimed British-Iraqi nerve surgeon Dr. Mohammed Tahir embarks on his third humanitarian mission to Gaza.
48 Resisting the big settlement + Where the Wind Blows
Monday 24 November | 18:30 | GENESIS CINEMA
This double bill explores Palestinian resilience: from daily resistance under occupation to a family’s return to their ancestral home, showing how their bond with the land nurtures heritage and ensures survival of all life on its soil.
[LIVERPOOL] shorts session: BEARING WITNESS
Monday 24 November | 19:00 | FACT LIVERPOOL
Bring the lived realities of Palestinians into sharp focus, three powerful films form a quiet chorus of resistance. Exploring trauma, memory and place, they converge in one urgent question: when life, land and senses are under siege, how do you live, remember and bear witness?
A STATE OF PASSION
Monday 24 November | 20:00 | RIVERSIDE STUDIOS
After 43 horrific days working under constant bombardment in Gaza’s hospitals, British‑Palestinian reconstructive surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah emerged to find himself as a face of Palestinian resistance.
THE MISSION +SCREEN TALK
Tuesday 25 November | 18:00 | CURZON MAYFAIR
In the darkest days of the ongoing Palestinian genocide, acclaimed British-Iraqi nerve surgeon Dr. Mohammed Tahir embarks on his third humanitarian mission to Gaza.
UK PREMIERE: PASSING DREAMS
Tuesday 25 November | 20:45 | BARBICAN CINEMA 1
A 12-year-old boy embarks on a journey across Palestine with his uncle and cousin to find his lost pigeon, navigating checkpoints and memories in a tender story of hope, resilience and discovery.
YALLAH GAZA
Tuesday 25 November | 20:00 | SANDS FILMS STUDIO
Gaza is a small Palestinian territory home to over two-million people. Under total blockade by Israel since 2007, its people remain resilient.
SHORTS SESSION: FRAGMENTS OF LIFE +HEKAYYATNA
Wednesday 26 November | 18:20 | CURZON HOXTON
Examining the fragile balance between survival and surrender, these five intimate stories from Palestine and Lebanon explore personal freedom, fear, corruption, loss, and resilience amid daily struggles and hardship.
PUT YOUR soul on your hand and walk
Wednesday 26 November | 20:45 | ICA
A haunting testament to the resilience of daily life under siege in Gaza. Captured through a filmmaker's video calls with a Palestinian photojournalist, these calls are a powerful digital lifeline to the realities of war, resistance and survival.
the jacket
+SCREEN TALK
Thursday 27 November | 18:20 | CURZON HOXTON
Jamal Hindawi lives with his family in the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, where he makes political theatre. When he starts a journey to search for an important lost theatre prop, he witnesses how the successive political and economic crises have disrupted an entire region and its people.
SHORTS SESSION: BEARING WITNESS
Friday 28 November | 18:30 | ICA
CLOSING NIGHT
Through sonic archives, silent vibrations, and atmospheric unrest, ordinary people endure extraordinary hardship—holding fragments of life that refuse to be silenced.
ALL THAT’S LEFT OF YOU
Friday 28 November | 20:00 | RIVERSIDE STUDIOS
CLOSING NIGHT
After a Palestinian teen gets swept up into a West Bank protest, his mother recounts the family story of hope, courage and relentless struggle that led to this fateful moment.
WITH THANKS TO OUR 2025 SPONSORS
EVENTS in 2025
[PAST EVENT]
PREVIEW SCREENING: PALESTINE 36 +SCREEN TALK
[PAST EVENT] PALESTINE CINEMA DAYS:
BYE BYE TIBERIAS +HEKAYYATNA
[PAST EVENT] FORENSIC ARCHitecture: RETURN TO AL MA’IN +SCREEN TALK
[PAST EVENT] PREVIEW SCREENING: TO A LAND UNKNOWn +SCREEN TALK
