Zaya Ralitza Benazzo & Maurizio Benazzo | USA | 104 min | Partial Subtitles
Co-presented by Big John Leacock Realtor
Supported by MT Space
EVENT: In Conversation
Feature Film Screening: Exploring the impacts of generational trauma, loss, and resilience, Where Olive Trees Weep offers a window into the lives of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation in the West Bank. Filmed in 2022, this documentary illuminates the experiences and insights of Palestinian journalist and therapist Ashira Darwish, grassroots activist Ahed Tamimi, and Israeli journalist Amira Hass. It also bears witness to Dr. Gabor Maté’s trauma-healing work, honouring each individual’s humanity and the strength it requires to heal and persist.
Ashira Ali Darwish worked for 15 years as a TV & Radio journalist and researcher in Palestine for the BBC, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. She is the founder of Catharsis Holistic Healing, a trauma therapy project pioneering a type of Sufi active meditation that draws its roots from ancestral and Indigenous knowledge.
Amira Hass is an Israeli journalist, author and columnist in the daily newspaper Haaretz. She covers Palestinian affairs in Gaza and the West Bank, where she has lived for almost thirty years. The daughter of two Holocaust survivors, she is the recipient of many awards for her work including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Women's Media Foundation.
Ahed Tamini is a Palestinian activist, born and raised in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, which became a center of the resistance. At 16 years old, in 2017, she was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier, the video went viral, and Tamini was arrested and detained for seven months. The story of Tamini embodies the Palestinian experience under Israeli occupation.
Dr. Gabor Maté is a Holocast survivor, Order of Canada recipient, and is a Hungarian- Canadian physician known for his work on trauma, addiction, and childhood development. Once identified as a Zionist, he now openly criticizes Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands. He believes that acknowledging historical context is crucial to understand the current conflict and to move forward.
Post-Film: A conversation on narrative justice and healing, and a series of brief reflective performances curated by the MT Space.
DIRECTOR BIOS
Zaya Benazzo is a filmmaker from Bulgaria with degrees in engineering, environmental science, and film. For many years, she worked as an environmental activist in Holland and Bulgaria, and later produced and directed several award-winning documentaries in Europe and the United States.
Maurizio Benazzo grew up in Italy, and in 1984 came to the United States on a ninety-eight-year-old sailing boat. He started working as an actor, model, and filmmaker, but his thirst for knowledge was only satisfied in 2001 upon encountering I Am That, the seminal work by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, while he was in India shooting the award-winning documentary Short Cut to Nirvana.
