Nadi Lekol Nas and the Sursock Museum will be presenting the restored film Return to Haifa, by the film director Kassem Hawal, on Thursday, 25 January at 19:00. 

Return to Haifa
Dir. Kassem Hawal, 1982
73’, Lebanon
In Arabic with English subtitles
Screenplay: Kassem Hawal, based on Ghassan Kanafani’s novel
Music: Ziad Rahbani
Cast: Paul Matar and Hanane Hajj-Ali
 
On April 21, 1948, the quiet life in the Palestinian city of Haifa turned into something resembling hell. Amid mortar shelling, the inhabitants were forced to leave abruptly and move from their homeland.
A Palestinian family had to leave behind their child Khaldoun. Unable to reach home, they were forcefully displaced without him and searched for him obsessively for the next twenty years.

Kassem Hawal (b. 1940, Basra) is an Iraqi filmmaker currently residing in the Netherlands. He studied acting and theater making at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad. In 1970, he traveled to Lebanon and Syria where he started making political films, independently and with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Hawal has directed twenty-eight documentaries and five feature films.