SAF to host UAE premiere of award winning film Palestine 36 in Sharjah
- Last updated: January 14, 2026 | 09:34 ..
Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer
Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) presents the UAE premiere of Palestine 36 (2025), a historical drama written and directed by Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir. The event takes place on January 24 at 8:00 pm at Mirage City Cinema, Al Mureijah Square, SAF space, to be followed by a Q&A with director Annemarie Jacir and producer Ossama Bawardi. Palestine 36 won the Tokyo Grand Prix at the 38th Tokyo International Film Festival (2025) and has been shortlisted for the 98th Academy Awards (2026) in the best international feature category.
The film recounts the 1936 – 1939 Arab resistance against British colonial rule in Palestine during the British Mandate period (1920 - 1948). It stars Hiam Abbass, Kamel El Basha, Yasmine Al Massri, Jalal Altawil, Robert Aramayo and Saleh Bakri. The movie had its world premiere in the Gala Presentations section of the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, to a 20 minute standing ovation. The film is Jacir’s fourth directorial feature, and is also one of the two films selected for SAF’s inaugural Sharjah Film Platform Feature Fund — a robust grant designed to support and promote films from the region.
Jacir’s acclaimed film follows Yusuf, who longs for a future beyond the 1936 revolt against British colonial rule. As villages across Mandatory Palestine rise against British colonial rule in 1936, Yusuf drifts between his rural home and the restless energy of Jerusalem, longing for a future beyond the growing unrest. With rising numbers of Jewish immigrants escaping antisemitism in Europe, and the Palestinian population uniting in the largest and longest uprising against Britain’s 30-year dominion, all sides spiral towards inevitable collision in a decisive moment vis-a-vis the British Empire and the future of the entire region.
Hiam Abbass was born in Nazareth in 1960 to a family of Israeli Arabs of Palestinian descent. She was raised in the village of Deir Hanna, Occupied Palestine. Since the late 1980s, she has lived in Paris, and holds French citizenship. Kamel El Basha was born in 1962 in Malha and is a Palestinian actor, theatre director, teacher, and translator. Malha was then a thriving village in Palestine known as al-Maliha, now a suburb in south-western Jerusalem in Occupied Palestine. Basha recalls being five years old and running from his home with his family during the 1967 war. As a child, when there was no television, he would perform for other children in the neighbourhood in his home. El Basha was artistic director of the Palestinian National Theater in Jerusalem from 2007 to 2011, and the artistic director of Quds Art from 2012.
Yasmine Al Massri (b. 1978) is a Palestinian-French actress, dancer, video artist and human rights advocate. She was born in 1978 in Beirut, to a Palestinian refugee father and an Egyptian mother. She was initially raised during the Lebanese Civil War, when her parents migrated to France. In 2007, she graduated from the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, where she began her career as a dancer at the Souraya Baghdadi dance company. She later moved to the US and became a US citizen. Jalal Altawil (b. 1981) in Jubb’adin, Maaloula, Syria, is an actor. Robert Aramayo (b. 1992) is an English actor. From 2016 to 2017, he played the role of young Eddard Stark in the sixth and seventh season of the HBO series Game of Thrones. In 2021, he starred in the Netflix psychological thriller miniseries Behind Her Eyes. Since 2022, he has played Elrond in the Amazon series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Saleh Bakri (b. 1977) is a Palestinian actor. In 2007, he appeared in his first two films, The Band’s Visit and Salt of this Sea by Annemarie Jacir, which premiered at Cannes in 2008. Salt of this Sea was Bakri’s debut performance in an Arab film and went on to be Palestine’s official submission for the Academy Awards.
The Band’s Visit also won numerous prizes and awards, including the Ophir Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Most Promising Actor award at the Jerusalem Film Festival. Ossama Bawardi is an independent producer working in Palestine and Jordan. He began his film career in various productions including Paradise Now by Hany Abu Assad, Whispering Embers by Ali Nassar and Salt of this Sea, by Annemarie Jacir.
Palestinian filmmaker, writer, and producer Annemarie Jacir has been working in independent cinema since 1998 and has written, directed and produced a number of award-winning films. Two of her films have premiered as Official Selections in Cannes, one in Berlin and in Venice, Locarno, Rotterdam, Toronto, and Telluride. All three of her feature films were selected as Palestine’s Oscar Entry for Foreign Language Film. Her short film, Like Twenty Impossibles, was the first Arab short film to ever be an official selection of the Cannes International Film Festival and went on to be a Student Academy Awards Finalist, winning more than 15 awards at international festivals.
She has won several screenwriting awards and has served as a jury member in festivals including in Cannes in 2018 and the Berlin International Film Festival, in 2020. She is chief curator and founder of the Dreams of a Nation Palestinian cinema project, dedicated to the promotion of Palestinian cinema. Jacir’s poetry and stories have been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies. The 2025 Sharjah Film Platform Feature Fund worth Dhs500,000, was shared by her film, Palestine 36.