Nau mai, haere mai e te whānau!

Please join us for a one-night-only film screening of the movie Foragers (2022) directed by Jumana Manna,
fundraising for Watermelon Relief: Aid for Displaced Families in Gaza.

The film screening will be on Monday 24 June 2024, at Whakamax Cinemas.

Doors open at 5:30pm for kai and kōrero (food and drink is free - please bring a plate if you've time and BYO wine or inu)

The film will screen at 6:30pm and runs for approximately one hour.

Foragers is whānau friendly with no physical violence depicted and is suitable viewing for tamariki and rangatahi.

Tickets are $12.50 (child) - $20 (waged) with all proceeds going to Watermelon Relief.

About 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.

About the Director:

Jumana Manna is a Palestinian visual artist and filmmaker. Her work explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land and materiality in relation to colonial inheritances and histories of place. Through sculpture, filmmaking, and occasional writing, Manna deals with the paradoxes of preservation practices, particularly within the fields of archaeology, agriculture and law. Her practice considers the tension between the modernist traditions of categorisation and conservation and the unruly potential of ruination as an integral part of life and its regeneration. Jumana was raised in Jerusalem and lives in Berlin.

Covid-19 Safety Precautions:

Let's look after each other e te whānau! For the safety of yourself, ourselves, and our immunocompromised, disabled and elderly members in the community, we ask you please don't attend the film screening if you are experiencing symptoms of sickness beforehand. We recommend you test for Covid-19 before attending as there are a growing number of cases currently active in the community and they grow rampant as we head into Winter. Please mask up to practice community care for one another! Masks and hand sanitiser will be available on the night if you don't have one handy.

Mauri ora!