Farah Nabulsi is an Oscar-nominated and BAFTA award-winning Palestinian-British filmmaker, born, raised and educated in the UK.

She left the corporate world in 2016 to start working in the film industry as a writer & producer of short fiction films, exploring topics that matter to her. Her films include Today They Took My Son, endorsed by renowned British Director Ken Loach, screened at the United Nations and officially selected to top-tier international film festivals.

The Present, her directorial debut, which she also co-wrote and produced, stars renowned actor Saleh Bakri. It premiered at Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2020 and won the coveted Audience Award for Best Film. It went on to win over 40 International Film Festival Jury and Audience Awards, a BAFTA Award for Best British Short Film and an Academy Award Oscar Nomination for Best Live Action Short. The Present was licensed internationally to Canal+ and Netflix Worldwide.

The Teacher, screened in this year’s festival, is Farah’s multi-award-winning directorial feature length fiction debut, and had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. It had its MENA premiere at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and took home the best actor award and the main jury prize. The jury was headed by director Baz Luhrmann. The film stars the Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri and the British actress Imogen Poots.

Farah has been invited to serve as a jury member at numerous festivals and as a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The feature-length debut of screenwriter/director Farah Nabulsi, The Teacher stars Saleh Bakri as Basem, an English teacher in the West Bank. Among his students are brothers Yacoub (Mahmoud Bakri) and Adam (Muhammad Abed El Rahman). Yacoub has just been released from an Israeli prison, while Adam, a young talent, grapples with whether it’s worth studying and following rules under settler colonialism. The lives of the students become intricately intertwined with that of their teacher, who has painfully rebuilt his life after a personal tragedy. His concealed grief, rage and past will be exposed after encountering volunteer-worker Lisa and the opportunity for a new relationship.

A daylight murder, surrounded by burned olive trees, and the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian resistance compel the protagonists to navigate challenging ethical questions, such as those posed by the film: What do pedagogy and solidarity mean in such conditions? Is it possible to fight for justice within the colonial institutional framework? When and how is self-defense and the use of violence legitimate?

The movie brings together the stark contrasts in the brutal realities of everyday life under occupation: houses irreparably demolished, markets filled with colorful fruits, the sudden possibility of love and laughter, and the differing values placed on a person’s life depending on where they were born.

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Eliana Otta

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The texts have been produced by the network Filmmakers for Palestine gr.
*We consider Filmmakers to be every person who designs, implements, analyzes and teaches cinema: from editors to assistant directors, from lighting technicians to film critics, from viewers to programmers. A film is created by every gaze that shapes it.

Editing & Translation Team: Sofia Grigoriadou, Christina Phoebe, Maximillien Luc Proctor, Sophia Thomopoulos