Mizna will open the festival with two short films that resist the colonial archive through subversion and disruption. Each film uses cinematic techniques to simultaneously expose and upend the production and legitimacy of the settler colonial state by reediting together scenes that represent imperial violence. The film screenings will be followed by a short conversation between members of the Mizna team and community.

Paradiso, XXXI, 108 (18 mins) Kamal Aljafari
Paradiso, XXXI, 108 edits together footage of Israeli military trainings to consider how we see and understand the processes of war and occupation through archival footage. 

Cowboy (15 mins) Sami Al-Salamoni
Made in solidarity with the Palestinian liberation movements of the 1970s, Cowboy splices together images from American Westerns to expose the settler colonial aesthetics of Hollywood cinema. 
 

For over twenty-five years, Mizna has been a woman-led contemporary arts organization. Since our founding, we have promoted experimental approaches to art, literature, and film; work that questions and expands the forms and conceptual frameworks of Arab and SWANA culture. We publish a biannual print literary and art journal, Mizna, and Mizna Online, a digital platform for literary and multidisciplinary work reflecting critically on the current realities of the SWANA region and beyond. We produce the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, the largest and longest-running SWANA-centered film festival in the Midwest. Mizna also offers readings, film series, performances, public art commissions, and community events that have featured 1000+ local and transnational writers, filmmakers, and artists.