Reel Palestine Returns to Cinema Akil for Its 12th Edition

For over a decade, Reel Palestine has carved out a vital space for Palestinian cinema in the UAE: as archive, testimony, and living cultural practice. This January, the festival returns to Cinema Akil for its 12th edition, running from 23 January to 1 February 2026, reaffirming its role as one of the region’s most enduring platforms for Palestinian storytelling.

Presented by Bayt and held in partnership with Alserkal Avenue, this year’s programme brings together fiction, documentary, and short films that span generations, geographies, and lived realities, offering audiences not a single narrative, but a constellation of voices shaped by memory, resistance, humour, grief, and imagination.

Cinema as Witness

The festival opens with the UAE premiere of Once Upon a Time in Gaza by Arab and Tarzan Nasser, a Cannes-premiered drama set in Gaza in 2007, where survival, loyalty, and spectacle collide under siege. The opening night screening will be followed by an in-person Q&A with actor Majd Eid, grounding the cinematic experience in dialogue and presence.

Among the centrepieces of this year’s programme is a focus on Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir, who will attend the festival in person. Her latest feature, Palestine 36, returns audiences to British Mandate Palestine in 1936, tracing a young man’s life as political unrest reshapes both village and city. The programme also includes a special screening of Jacir’s celebrated film Wajib, presented in tribute to the late Mohammad Bakri, honouring his legacy through one of his most enduring performances.

Stories Beyond the Headlines

Documentary cinema plays a powerful role in this year’s edition, offering intimate perspectives shaped by care and proximity rather than distance. Put Your Soul in Your Hand and Walk by Sepideh Farsi unfolds through video conversations with Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona, forming a fragile yet vital record of life in Gaza. Meanwhile, The Clown of Gaza follows Alaa Meqdad, who transforms performance into an act of tenderness for children living through devastation.

Other works — from Palestine Comedy Club to Who Is Still Alive — reveal how humour, memory, and creative expression persist even under the weight of loss, challenging the narrow frames through which Palestinian life is so often viewed.

Short Films, Living Archives

The short film programme continues this intimacy through smaller gestures and personal stories. From Born A Celebrity to Gaza Bride 17 and BAISANOS, these works explore identity, privacy, displacement, and belonging, often through unexpected lenses such as football fandom, family tension, or quiet moments of interior conflict. Together, they form a mosaic of Palestinian experience that is as varied as it is deeply human.

Beyond the Screen

Reel Palestine extends far beyond cinema. Across two weekends, the Reel Palestine Souk transforms the spaces around Cinema Akil and KAVE into a gathering place for Palestinian designers, artisans, collectives, and social enterprises. Fashion, jewellery, books, homeware, and food sit alongside conversation and exchange, reinforcing the festival’s role as a living cultural ecosystem rather than a standalone event.

This year’s visual identity, created by Palestinian artist Rami Afifi, draws from the lineage of Arab illustration, echoing the work of Helmi El Touni, Mohieddine Ellabbad, and Naji Al-Ali. The artwork becomes an act of return: weaving fishermen, orange groves, ka’ak, musicians, and native flora into a visual archive shaped by longing, memory, and resilience.

A Necessary Space

In a region where Palestinian stories are often fragmented or politicised beyond recognition, Reel Palestine remains grounded in care, offering space for complexity, contradiction, and dignity. Its 12th edition is not only a celebration of cinema, but a reaffirmation of storytelling as a form of continuity.

Reel Palestine runs from 23 January to 1 February 2026 at Cinema Akil. Tickets and the full programme are available via cinemaakil.com.