OPENING NIGHT audiences at the Palestine Film Festival heard Ahadaf Soueif, Egyptian novelist and Festival patron/opening speech (above) and Monica Borgmann (left & below), co director of film Massaker, and Rose Issa, interviewer.

Opening talk from Ahdaf Soueif, Egyptian novelist and critic. 21 April, 2006 as preview to the festival and introducing the opening film, Massaker director Monika Borgmann, Lokman Slim and Herman Theissen. Germany/Lebanon. 2005 98 mins.

I also hope however and am sure you will join me in this wish, that the context in which the festival takes place might become less dire. Since the last year when we celebrated the birth of this festival, things on the ground have become worse and we are in the position of celebrating the presence of Palestinian arts in different part of the work while the situation in Palestine deteriorates. And of course there is Iraq as well. To my mind, the conflict or the aggression inside Palestine is the nucleus of conflict in the whole region. I have just come back from Cairo two days ago and certainly the effects of what is going on in Palestine are very much felt in Cairo and I'm sure in other parts of the region and in the whole world. In this last year, since the festival began the Israeli- Palestinian situation has claimed the lives of more than 300 people as well as 1100 wounded. As we sit here tonight there are more than 8000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. However, as we have been seeing for years, the Palestinians continue to be undefeated. And if the Israeli government is busy pretending to the world that Israel stands on the front line between the civilized world and the forces of terrorism and barbarism, the world is really coming to understand that it is the Palestinians and now as well the Iraqi‚s are in fact the major obstacle standing in the way of the predatory and inherently violent US and Israeli policies towards the world. However, as the velocity of the Israeli and US attacks on democracy, on human rights and on international law increases, on all these concepts that people have so painstakingly and at such cost put together and as the duplicity of the discourse that is supposed to make us able to swallow the abuses, as this duplicity reaches further and further heights, I think its true to say that there is an equal in the clarity and commitment of forces that speak for justice.

These forces find some of the most powerful expression in art, which in itself tells us some- thing of the nature of the conflict that is going on, about the culture of violence and the violence of culture. It's interesting now, that an arts exhibition made in Palestine and that is being shown in NY to such crowds has been extended for a month because so many want to see it. It's interesting that the film, Paradise Now, is making such a noise and has got a major distributor and is on general release. And it'‚s in this context that we welcome the PFF back to the Barbican.

The spirit of the festival is absolutely exemplary in that it is a festival that does not admit or preclude anyone on the basis of religion or race or whatever. It has a thematic unity in that it features films about Palestine, it has an ethical unity in that these are films that ultimately tell the truth, whether it‚s a documentary truth or a profound artistic truth and it has a professional unity in that it attempts to bring to the festival the best of the films that are to be shown. I was very interested when I saw how the programme touched on so many issues and aspects of the Palestinian problem that very often are almost forgotten, so I'm looking forward for example to see Forget Baghdad about the Iraqi Jews, as well as the civil war in Lebanon that is represented, films about Palestinian refugees in Lebanon that are also featured in two films, one about the Palestinians of 1948. The films vary from historic documentaries to idiosyncratic quirky shorts.

The film that we're going to see tonight is Monika Borgmann's Massaker, The organizers of the PFF gave me opportunity to look at this film at my request and I was really not able to watch it though I do hope you will hang onto your seats. Its uncomfortable viewing but I think I'll certainly be helped through the viewing by knowing that Monika Borgmann is here and that we are going to have a Q&A with her afterwards. And so, finally another thanks to the supporters and sponsors of the PFF, another thanks to the Barbican for adopting the festival and a big thank you.... and I hope you join me in a round of applause for the organizers, without which this wouldn'‚t have happened and who have put it all together, Khaled Ziada, Nick Denes and Samar Martha.

For purposes of clarity this talk has been edited. Excerpts from discussion with Monika Borgmann, co-director of Massaker, will appear shortly.