About

The Manchester Palestine Film Festival was born out of a profound and moving experience in November 2023. Whilst visiting London on a work trip, a friend invited me to attend the London Palestine Film Festival on 20th November to watch Gaza—a powerful, deeply moving film that left a lasting impact.

Following that experience, I visited Jerusalem in February 2024. That journey, combined with the screening, made it painfully clear how little I personally knew about the struggle. It became evident that film and cinema are profound mediums capable of helping audiences truly relate to and understand that struggle—something that was deeply needed back home in Manchester.

Following the February 2024 trip, the rest of the co-founders helped develop the idea to bring the festival to life. Whilst other screenings existed, we believe that cinema is an immersive experience, and to truly understand this, we wanted to put the films on the big screen. Realising that Manchester lacked a space like this, we set out to create it ourselves, bringing Palestinian stories to our city's audiences on the scale they deserve.