SAFAR IN HULL

19 June '25 - 26 June '25

SAFAR Film Festival 2025 is coming to Hull, presenting cinema from across the Arab world.

This year’s festival is bringing a powerful Palestinian documentary and a Palestinian feature film to the audiences of Hull Independent Cinema.

Thank You for Banking with Us! (2024)

In Ramallah, estranged sisters Mariam and Noura reunite after their father’s death leaves a substantial sum in the bank. Under Islamic inheritance law, their absentee brother is entitled to a larger share. Determined to claim what they believe is rightfully theirs, the sisters embark on a tense, overnight mission to secure the funds before the authorities are notified. ​

Laila Abbas’s debut feature is a sharp, darkly humorous exploration of sisterhood and resistance against patriarchal norms. The film has garnered critical acclaim, winning the El Gouna Star for the Best Arab Film and earning nominations at the Critics Awards for Arab Films.

Thank You for Banking with Us! offers a compelling look at contemporary struggles for gender equality in the Arab world.

Tickets available Thursday 19 June, 7:30pm

A State of Passion (2024)

After 43 horrific days working round the clock under constant bombardment in the emergency rooms of Gaza’s Al Shifa and Al Ahli hospitals, British-Palestinian reconstructive surgeon, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, emerged to find himself as a face of Palestinian resistance.

With news footage of him pale and shell-shocked reverberating around the world, he spoke of a catalogue of horrors from lacerated bodies, to amputations without anaesthetics, orphaned children with no surviving family, and the deliberate targeting of medics and hospital facilities.

This was Ghassan’s sixth and most horrific Gaza “war”.  Why does he do it?  Where does he find the strength to face it again and again? How does it impact his family? How do they process the risks he takes? The answer lies simply in their shared passion: Palestine, a passion they articulate through their support of his perilous humanitarian work.

Tickets available Thursday 26 June, 7:30pm