Red Emma’s

Winter 2008: the bombardment of Gaza leaves some 1,417 Palestinians dead, over 10,000 homes destroyed and thousands severely and permanently injured. As these agonies unfolded, a group of filmmakers based in Ramallah met in an attempt to direct their outrage into a creative collective effort. Filmmakers within and beyond Palestine were invited to submit short works. The result was Gaza's Winter, a diverse and often striking collection of global meditations on the war waged on Gaza that winter. The collection comprises work by the following directors: Islam al Burbar (Gaza), Tareq Elayyan (Gaza), Dima Hamdan (UK), Fahad Jabali (Iceland), Pilar Tavora (Spain), Salim Abu Jabal (Golan Heights), George Azar (Palestine/Jordan), Ismail Habbash (Ramallah), Mathieu Cauville (France), Khmais Hmaid (Tunis), Raed al Helou (Ramallah), and Omar Hamilton (UK).

The filmmaker and director Najwa Najjar has explored several new artistic grounds as she has written, directed, and produced over a dozen critically acclaimed award-winning films that have premiered at the film festivals in Cairo, Berlin, Cannes, Locarno, and at Sundance. In 2020, she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2021, she was elected to the European Film Academy EFA and honored for her work at the Aswan International Women’s Film Festival and the Tiro Arts Festival in Lebanon. Recently, she was elected to be part of the Academy Writer’s Executive Committee.