🎬 Older than Israel — Work-in-Progress Film Screening and Discussion. Doors at 6:10pm, event begins at 6:30pm. Free. Light food and refreshments will be served.
About the Film
Older than Israel (أكبر من إسرائيل / Más grandes que Israel) is an Argentine–Palestinian co-production that follows Rihana, a young Palestinian journalist, as she travels across refugee camps in the West Bank meeting elders who were displaced during the 1948 Nakba. Through their memories and testimonies, the film explores how the personal and collective intertwine as a form of resistance.
Filmed in 2022 and 2025, the documentary combines present-day interviews, still photography, and UNRWA archival footage to build a narrative about the intergenerational transmission of memory and the persistence of a people refusing to be erased.
Directed by Cristian Pirovano and Ismael Al Bes, and edited by Alejandro Rath, Older than Israel will be presented at UBC as a special work-in-progress screening.
Post-Screening Discussion
The screening will be followed by a conversation moderated by Hicham Safieddine, Professor in the Department of History (UBC), with:
• Alejandro Rath (Editor) – in person
• Cristian Pirovano & Ismael Al Bes (Directors) – joining online
Organized with the collaboration and support of: Graduate Students for Palestine (GS4P) · Middle East Studies (MES) · Latin American Studies (LAS) · Centre for Climate Justice (CCJ) · Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice (GRSJ) · Department of Geography · School of Public Policy and Global Affairs (SPPGA)
Land Acknowledgment
We acknowledge with gratitude that this event will take place on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people, who have cared for these lands and waters since time immemorial.
