Films
At the Edge of Hope
This documentary series brings together urgent, intimate, and deeply human films from Israel, Palestine, and beyond.Through stories that are both intimate and political, the films trace how personal lives are upended by war, how families and communities wrestle with grief and division, and how questions of identity and belonging are refracted through borders, histories, and everyday encounters.
They bear witness to the profound fractures that shape Israeli and Palestinian life, while also revealing the ways those fractures echo globally, in the halls of government, on university campuses, and in the rhythms of daily existence. Even amid devastation, the works gesture toward fragile possibilities: glimpses of connection, resilience, and the stubborn persistence of hope. More than chronicles of conflict, these films demand that we sit with complexity, listen across divides, and ask what it means to imagine a different future in a time of war.
Presented with
FILMMAKER Jennifer Ruth IN ATTENDANCE
Tuesday, November 11 at 7:00 p.m.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Phoenix Theatres State Wayne
35310 W Michigan Ave, Wayne, MI 48184
Universities are meant to be places where ideas can be argued without fear. Yet as Israel’s war on Gaza grinds on, that ideal feels increasingly fragile. Across the United States, administrators discipline students for protest, lawmakers threaten faculty, and new visa restrictions target Palestinian students. These are reminders that the space for dissent is narrowing fast,
The Palestine Exception looks squarely at this crisis of academic freedom. Through archival footage and candid interviews with scholars including Judith Butler, the film follows students and professors as they demand a ceasefire and divestment from companies tied to Israel. Their movement, already the largest U.S. anti-war uprising since the 1970s, meets a swift backlash, exposing what activists call the “Palestine exception,” where speech and assembly rights end the moment Israel is named.
The film resonates with today’s headlines while telling a story of campuses as both refuge and battleground, of personal and collective histories colliding, and of the stubborn insistence that a university remain a place for truth-telling, even when power wants silence.
USA. 2025
Directed by Jan Haaken & Jennifer Ruth.
In English.
Running time 70 min.
Saturday, November 22 at 4:00 p.m.
Doors open at 3:30 p.m.
Planet Ant
2320 Caniff, Hamtramck, MI 48212
Ali, an Iraqi doctor seeking asylum falls for Katie, an emerging New York gallerist, and they begin a new romance. When disturbing news from Baghdad comes back to haunt Ali in the midst of his asylum process, he becomes increasingly torn between the new life he’s starting with Katie and the life he left behind.
Produced by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow) and Paul Jacobs.
Festivals
- Woodstock
- San Diego
- Minneapolis-St. Paul
- Hollywood Arab Film Festival
USA. 2024
Directed by Oday Rasheed.
English and Arabic with English subtitles.
Running time 108 min.