A HIGHLANDS village with a population of just 650 people is set to host a Palestinian film festival.
The Assynt Festival of Palestinian Films is taking place in Lochinver next weekend between August 7 and 9.
The festival will feature films by four world-renowned Palestinian filmmakers, who have all waived their screening fees to enable the event to go ahead, while all proceeds will go to Medical Aid for Palestinians and The Galilee Foundation.
Grahame Perrie, a former BBC journalist, is the main organiser behind the festival.
He told The National: "Early on, I had people saying, 'Why Lochinver?' And my immediate response was, why not?"
"It's not as if we are so remote that we're not connected with the wider world, and there's certainly a good number of people who are very motivated by things like social justice.
"There's also a lingering memory of displacement in the Highlands, for obvious reasons historically, which just seems to empathise with that's been happening in Palestine."
Perrie was inspired to start the festival after seeing The Voice of Hind Rajab at Eden Court, in Inverness, in February.
The harrowing film tells the true story of a Palestine Red Crescent Society worker who attempts to rescue five-year-old Hind from a car being shot at by the Israel Defence Forces in Gaza City in January 2024.
"It was an incredibly powerful experience, not least because the actual voice of the little girl, as recorded by the Red Crescent, was used in the film," Perrie said.
"It was very moving and distressing, and when the film ended and the audience were leaving, you could sense people were bursting to talk about what they had just seen – but there was no opportunity.
"This got me reflecting a lot about how many people are perfectly aware of what's been happening in Gaza and in Palestine, but there's been no real opportunity to do anything about it. There's a sense of powerlessness – what else do you do when we're faced with all this?"
Perrie then decided to create a similar cinema event to bring people together, and came up with the idea of the Assynt Festival of Palestinian Films.
Yet Perrie's background as a former managing editor at BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in England, also helped to shape the festival.
"I was working with many colleagues who are Arab, Persian, Afghan, and I was able to draw upon advice and suggestions from many wonderful ex-colleagues," he said.
"I'm very familiar with all the upheavals in that part of the world, but of course, I share with – I believe a majority of people – the absolute frustration and sense of powerlessness that what we're witnessing is simply not being addressed adequately by those who represent us."
The festival has already attracted a wide crowd, with Perrie saying that there has been "genuine support" for the event not just from the local community, but across the country.
"I've had people from far and wide saying how interested they would be in coming along, including people living way down south," he told The National.
"They are fascinated by the idea that in such a 'remote' location – and I use the word advisably – something so unusual is happening. That's the key of it."
The four filmmakers to have their work screened at the Assynt Festival of Palestinian Films are:
- Farah Nubulsi (The Present, The Teacher)
- Annemarie Jacir (When I Saw You, Wajib)
- Ameen Nayfeh (200 Meters)
- Razan Madhoon (Go Home)
Tickets are priced at £3 per day or £6 for the whole festival.
The event will be held at Lochinver Village Hall.
