Falastin Film Festival: Energy for Liberation

Sat 26 September, 5-8pm

Join an evening of film, talks, food and conversation about oil, energy and activism in Palestine, Scotland and beyond.

As part of Falastin Film Festival, watch Razan Al-Salah’s experimental film A Stone’s Throw, which explores an emotional and material proximity between the extraction of oil and labour and the Zionist colonisation of Palestine.

Invited speakers from Platform, Friends of the Earth Scotland, and Energy Embargo for Palestine will guide a conversation to help us link Scotland’s oil stories with the political and historical narratives we encounter in the film.

Discuss together how disrupting the extraction, production, transportation and financing of fossil fuels is integral to both the liberation of Palestine and addressing the climate emergency.

We learn from Palestinian workers, unions, students and activists who have been at the forefront of the fight to block the fuel supplies which power genocide and settler colonialism.

Our discussion will be fueled by a delicious mezze platter of vegan and halal dishes, cooked for us by Iraqi Thistle, who lovingly fuse Iraqi and Middle Eastern flavours with Scottish produce.

Tickets

Event tickets are priced on a sliding scale from £5 / £10 / £15, with all proceeds covering the costs of the event and supporting mutual aid projects in Gaza. Buy tickets on Tzkrti, a Palestinian ticketing platform.

Event Schedule

• 5pm – Arrival & Introductions
• 5:10pm – Film Screening
• 6pm – Speaker Presentations
• 7pm – Food by Iraqi Thistle
• 7:30pm – Questions & Conversation
• 8pm – Event Closes

About the film

A Stone’s Throw (Razan Al-Salah, 2024, 40mins)

Amine, a Palestinian elder, is exiled twice from land and labour. He is displaced from his birthplace Haifa seeking refuge in Beirut, and again to Zirku Island, for work on an offshore oil platform and work camp in the Arab Gulf. The film rehearses a history of the Palestinian resistance when, in 1936, the oil labourers of Haifa blow up a BP pipeline.

About the filmmaker

Razan AlSalah is a filmmaker based in Tiotiake (Montreal), Haudenesaunee Six Nation Territory. Her work explores the disappearance of relations, stories and histories in the colonial image, that operates as another border, another wall, retrieving it as a site of collective recollection and restless returns to Palestine.

About the speakers

Connor Watt is a Worker Organiser at Platform. Founded in 1984, Platform’s team of campaigners, researchers and artists work across disciplines and draw on a 40 year history of organising in the climate justice movement. Originally from Aberdeenshire, now based in Glasgow, Connor engages with workers from across the energy industry. He has a background in academia, and is interested in using our experience of oil to forge a publicly-owned energy system which supports workers and communities alike.

Kate Whitaker is Head of Movement Building at Friends of the Earth Scotland, where she started as a volunteer in 2016. Kate supports local groups, communities and activists working towards climate and environmental justice across Scotland. She is also part of FoE International’s Gender Justice and Dismantling Patriarchy working group and is particularly interested in popular education and building cross-movement solidarity.

Energy Embargo for Palestine emerged from the collective recognition that there will never be “climate justice” or a “just transition” away from fossil fuels so long as imperialism survives, particularly in the Middle East, where a system of fossil-based capital accumulation is concentrated and which Israel is a protectorate of. The organisation currently campaigns against British Petroleum’s complicity with the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.

About Falastin Film Festival

This event is part of Falastin Film Festival, happening across Dundee and Fife from 24-27 September. Celebrate Palestinian cinema and culture in a programme of films, talks, workshops and performance co-curated by Art Workers for Palestine Dundee. Gather to mobilise against Zionist colonisation while learning from Palestinian resistance, cultural pride, stories of love, and, in the words of poet Rafeef Ziadah, teachings of life.