Oakhill Food Justice Farm, Pony Club Gym, Just Food Collective and Beit e'Shai Teahouse are inviting you to a community meal and screening of Jumana Manna’s third film Foragers as part of a solidarity fundraising campaign towards Beit'Shai's community event in May with Prof Mazin Qumsiyeh (from Bethlehem). This community event will be held on the Lands, Waters and Skies of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung People and we pay our collective respect to Wurundjeri Elders and Ancestors, and affirm that Sovereignty was never ceded.

As described by Jumana Manna the film, "Foragers depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in Palestine/Israel with wry humor and a meditative pace. Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee and Jerusalem, it employs fiction, documentary and archival footage to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs. The restrictions prohibit the collection of the artichoke-like ’akkoub and za’atar (thyme), and have resulted in fines and trials for hundreds caught collecting these native plants. For Palestinians, these laws constitute an ecological veil for legislation that further alienates them from their land while Israeli state representatives insist on their scientific expertise and duty to protect. Following the plants from the wild to the kitchen, from the chases between the foragers and the nature patrol, to courtroom defenses, Foragers captures the joy and knowledge embodied in these traditions alongside their resilience to the prohibitive law. By reframing the terms and constraints of preservation, the film raises questions around the politics of extinction, namely who determines what is made extinct and what gets to live on."

We would like to acknowledge and thank the Palestinian Film Festival for sharing the film screening rights with us for this community learning event.

This is a fundraising event
The screening of Foragers at Pony Club Gym in Preston is part of a fundraising series in support and in solidarity with Beit e’Shai Teahouse’s community event in May on ‘Land, Biodiversity & the Colony’ that is welcoming Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh from Bethlehem, alongside First Nations scholars and activists. All proceeds from this screening will go towards this fundraising (GoFundMe) campaign. More info at https://www.gofundme.com/f/community-event-with-prof-mazin-qumsiyeh-in-naarm
Excess funds from this GoFundMe campaign will be donated to the Palestine Museum of Natural History in Bethlehem (founded by Prof Mazin Qumsiyeh) and to Pay The Rent in Naarm.

Tickets
Sliding scale tickets, no one will be turned away for lack of funds. If you require assistance, please email hello@justfood.org.au

Community Meal
Food and drinks on the evening will be community potluck style, shared together after the film. Volunteers from each community partner will come together to cook enough food for everyone, but additional community contributions (Palestinian cuisine encouraged) are welcome! Please email hello@justfood.org.au if you would like to join in on the cooking.

Accessibility
Pony Club Gym is wheelchair accessible and there is a concrete driveway out the front of the building accessible by van.
The bathroom is not fully accessible by all wheelchairs - small wheelchairs can fit in the bathroom but not larger ones and it is not fitted with grab rails. The closest wheelchair accessible bathroom is El Jannah, Bell Train Station or Northland Shopping Center (within 7min drive).
There is a small room inside the Gym that will be dedicated as a quieter and low sensory zone (chill space) with soft lighting.