Alfred Roch, member of the Palestinian National League, is a politician with a bohemian panache. In 1942, at the height of WWII, he throws what will turn out to be the last masquerade in Palestine. Inspired by an archival photograph, A Sketch of Manners (Alfred Roch’s Last Masquerade) recreates an unconventional bon vivant aspect of Palestinian urban life before 1948. Posing silently for a group photo, the unmasked and melancholic pierrots accidentally personify the premonition of an uncertain future.

Foragers interweaves documentary and fiction to report on a searing conflict between the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and Palestinian foragers. Through an elaborate and elegant composition, the film successfully captures the inherited love, resilience and knowledge of these traditions, over an eminently political backdrop.

Robert Lachmann was a German-Jewish ethnomusicologist. In the 1930s, his radio show "Oriental Music" explored the musical traditions of Palestine and included regular live performances by musicians from different ethnic and religious groups.
Inspired by Lachmann’s musicological studies, Palestinian artist Jumana Manna travels through Israel and the Palestinian territories of today with recordings from the programme. What do these songs sound like now when performed by Moroccan, Kurdish, or Yemenite Jews, by Samaritans, members of the urban and rural Palestinian communities, Bedouins and Coptic Christians?
When a true fascination for history meets the sounds of the rababa, the saz, the oud and tin cans, a cultural diversity emerges that subverts the distinction between "Arab" and "Jewish". There are no national borders here, only different kitchens where people make music together – with their guests, while cooking, while someone makes the coffee. Until the music becomes so infectious you can’t help but dance along. berlinale 2016