The 13th Palestinian Film Festival Australia is set to return this May with a bold and innovative program of new cinema from and about Palestine, offering a powerful and resonant exploration of resilience, love and freedom in the face of ongoing war and dispossession.
Running across five cities – Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Canberra – from 1st to the 11th May, the Festival will once again spotlight a selection of vibrant new voices alongside acclaimed international works, continuing its mission to share Palestinian culture and art with Australia and the world.
“This year’s program is guided by a deep emotional pulse,” said Festival Director Naser Shakhtour. “It’s about the power of Palestinian cinema to speak from the rubble, to conjure memory, and to imagine freedom. These films reflect not just the struggles, but the resilience, beauty, and strength of Palestinian culture”.
Feature highlights include:
The Teacher, a tense, emotionally charged drama from Oscar-nominated filmmaker Farah Nabulsi. This gripping story of a Palestinian schoolteacher torn between compassion and resistance premiered at TIFF and is already earning acclaim for its moral complexity and powerful performances; To A Land Unknown, which premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, and tells the story of two Palestinian friends stranded in Athens and driven to extremes in their quest for escape; Passing Dreams (A Sydney exclusive) is the latest from Palestinian auteur Rashid Masharawi, and follows 12-year-old Sami and his search for a missing bird through the West Bank. Shot across Bethlehem and Haifa, it’s a lyrical road movie laced with humour and quiet melancholy; Thanks for Banking With Us (which will screen in Sydney and Melbourne only), a darkly funny feminist drama and a sharp portrait of sisterhood and resistance from debut director Laila Abbas, traces two sisters’ fight for their inheritance amid patriarchal law and political upheaval; and Upshot, winner of the Pardino d’Oro at Locarno, is a tightly scripted short drama about a journalist’s visit to a remote farm that unearths long-buried secrets.
This year’s festival will also present a suite of searing new documentaries, including:
From Ground Zero, produced by Masharawi’s Gaza-based fund, compiles 22 short works by displaced Palestinian artists working under bombardment; Gazan Tales (A Sydney, Melbourne and Perth exclusive), created in a filmmaking workshop with non-professional locals, offers a moving portrait of four men navigating daily life in Gaza before the most recent war; A Fidai Film (A Sydney, Melbourne and Perth only title), by Kamal Aljafari, investigates the 1982 looting of Palestinian archives in Beirut and confronts the Israeli institutions still holding them. Through recovered footage and radical re-editing Aljafari reclaims what was taken; Yalla Parkour (Melbourne and Perth only), directed by Areeb Zuaiter, tracks a powerful connection between a filmmaker and a parkour athlete in Gaza, blending nostalgia, memory and survival into a visually arresting portrait of youth and place; and An Orange from Jaffa, winner of the Clermont-Ferrand Grand Prix, is a short fiction gem about a young man’s desperate bid to cross a checkpoint. Directed by Mohammed Almughanni, the film distils the Palestinian condition into a single, high-stakes taxi ride.
For over a decade, the Palestinian Film Festival Australia has been a vital space for creative and critical expression, offering audiences a cinematic journey that celebrates the richness of Palestinian life and storytelling. In 2025, it continues to offer a vision rooted in humanity, resilience and cultural connection. For more information on session times and ticket sales, visit the official site here.
The festival will screen across the following dates in participating locations:
Sydney 1-4 May, Dendy Newtown
Perth 2-4 May, Luna Leederville
Melbourne 8-11 May, Cinema Nova Carlton
Brisbane 9-11 May, Dendy Coorparoo
Canberra 9-11 May, Dendy Canberra
