Interview with Toronto Palestinian Film Festival Director Deena Alsaweer
The 16th annual Toronto Palestinian Film Festival (TPFF) takes place from September 25 to October 2. The organisation was founded in 2008 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nakba. One of the filmmakers of this year’s festival is Deena Alsaweer, an Arab filmmaker, who was kind enough to sit down with Arts and Culture editor Alexa Fairclough to discuss the premiere of her up-and-coming short Stitches.
Stitches is a 12 ½ minute short packed with riveting sounds and beautiful images. The story follows Karim, a generous wedding dress shop owner whose life is turned upside down in the wake of the Israeli ban on the importation of wedding dresses to Palestine. His niece, Hind, devises a plan to smuggle wedding dresses into Palestine with the aid of her sleazy, on-and-off boyfriend Ziyad.
This inspirational tale was inspired by Alsaweer’s adoration for Arab women’s wedding fashion, and the importance of preserving community and tradition. When she shared her film idea with her family, her aunt informed her of Israel’s blockade on items deemed to have a “dual use” for violence, including chocolate, crayons, baby bottles, cinnamon, and more. The harrowing ban on many of the things that make life worth living loomed over Alsaweer throughout the creation of this film, as she doesn’t see herself as a writer of tragedies. For her, it was difficult to walk the fine line between telling stories that involve tragedy while not allowing that to be the end of the journey, which she accomplished with the creation of Stitches.
The cast and crew of Stitches themselves are a testament to the strength of the Palestinian diaspora and their far-reaching allies. Alsaweer claims that everything in this film came from the community; without the community, there would be nothing. The film was shot in Derile Thomas Textiles, located near Ottawa in Almont, Ontario. The shop is Palestinian-owned and they provided many of the lovely textiles seen throughout the film.
Another integral arm of support came from TPFF itself, which aided Alsaweer in finding a creative community that helped workshop her script. In her own words, “You have to have a community behind you in order to create a film regarding community resiliency.” Anytime she felt down, her community was there to lift her back up. The TPFF’s unwavering belief in her film from the start gave her the confidence to carry out this production.
Central to the film’s themes are the integrity and preservation of Palestinian heritage across various artistic genres. Visual symbolism plays a key role through the use of watermelon colours and olive green, reminiscent of the Palestinian flag. The movie begins with a mixture of wonderful sounds from across the globe, as Alsaweer sees music as the great equaliser across cultures. While colours portray sovereignty, sounds convey solidarity.
Much of the music in the film is a mixture of Arabic, Western, and African sounds. The soundtrack melds together Arabic instruments with Western phrasing and musical timing, and vice versa. In light of South Africa’s request that the International Court of Justice investigate Israel’s conduct in Palestine due to perceived genocidal actions, Alsaweer chose to use Afrobeats. The film’s sonic landscape is an homage to those around the world who support Palestine. However, by the end of the film, silence takes over as the ban begins to take its toll on the once jovial Karim.
Alsaweer began making movies over a decade ago, when she began editing videos in her youth. She started her professional career in the corporate world back in Bahrain, before applying to be a Fulbright Scholar at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Her main inspiration for embarking into the world of film is to show the beauty and the magic residing in everyday decisions humans make. As a filmmaker in the West, she hopes to counter the narratives regarding Arabs in Western media. Her ultimate goal as a filmmaker is to use her talent to produce something beautiful in a world which has given her so much.
