This year, the 20th Al Ard Film Festival brings you a completely fresh jury lineup. Our five new members are experts in filmmaking, documentaries, and/or Palestine and the Arab world. Get ready to meet these talented individuals who will be shaping the festival’s celebration of Arab and Palestinian filmmaking.
Mohammed Alatar
Mohammed is one of the major documentary filmmakers of Palestinian cinematography, an archive researcher and a human rights defender. His training as a filmmaker took place during the end of the ‘90s in the United States, since then he has devoted himself to human rights and the struggle of peoples, which have become the object of his production. His films have won many awards and have been broadcasted in many TV stations all over the world. He was nominated for the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanity Award for his work on behalf of human rights.
Filmography: The Iron Wall (2006), Jerusalem the East Side (2008), Broken (2018), The People’s Patriarch (2020) and Suffocation video art (2022).
Anna Maria Brancato
Anna embarked on her journey as a volunteer with Associazione Amicizia Sardegna Palestina back in 2012, fresh from a research experience in the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut. Since then, she’s delved deeper into the Palestinian cause, blending hands-on activism with academic interests. Over the past twelve editions of Al Ard Film Festival, she’s taken on various roles, from communication and contact manager to member of the Selection Board. This year, Anna Maria is stepping up, assuming the roles of both judge and co-artistic director, alongside Monica Maurer.
Hanaa Mahamid
Hannaa, Palestinian journalist based in Jerusalem, works as a correspondent for AlMayadeen TV with a focus on the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. She produced and directed several documentaries which highlights the Palestinian life under the Israeli Occupation as well as the Syrians in the occupied Golan Heights. Hanaa Mahamid has also covered several confrontations between Israelis and Palestinians since 2011, including the current aggression happening in Gaza.
Massimiliano Mazzotta
Massimiliano is a director from Salento, Italy, who over the years has made various docufilms on the environment and health. From Oil (2009), the first feature film with which he won the Ecological Film Festival, to the docufilm Manfredonia, la catastrofe continuata (2018) to the recent documentary Chemical Bros (2022) on the production and use of fluoride. He listened, reported and united numerous struggles and many local committees, giving voice to their demands. Today he is also the artistic director of Life After Oil, a film festival that deals specifically with the environment and human rights at an international level.
Filmography: Air Linate (2003), Oil Secondo Tempo (2011), L’Aria di Elmas (2015), Goa The Land of Shiva, Solo Seconda Stagione (2018), Le Ragazze Non Piangono (2022).
Marco Pasquini
Documentary filmmaker, director of photography and diving operator Marco Pasquini has been working in the film industry since the first half of the ‘90s. He has travelled in Europe, Africa, Middle East, India, Latin America and the United States while filming for Italian and international broadcasters. He has contributed to the creation of more than 150 documentaries on topics ranging from war stories and life in conflict territories to naturalistic themes, such as aquatic environments, art and anthropology. Underwater instructor and trainer of actors and actresses for water film scenes, he helped to create the diving school for cinema ASA (Actor Scuba Aquatic).
Filmography: Gaza Hospital (2009), I Racconti della Lixeira (2010) and The War to Come (2021).