Memorial for Juliano Mer-Khamis, director of "Arna's Children"

With the Iranian director Jafar Panahi's fate still unknown, this news from the Middle East further dims the light shed by courageous film artists in that part of the world. On April 4, masked militants in the Jenin refugee camp assassinated  Juliano Mer-Khamis, an actor, filmmaker, and co-founder of The Freedom Theatre.  The Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University and the Boston Palestine Film Festival will be marking Mer-Khamis's passing with a screening of his remarkable documentary  "Arna's Children" (2003), which had the privilege of seeing at the 2004 Hot Docs Festival in Toronto. Here's what I wrote about it then:

"One of the most troubling entries [in the Festival], and the winner of the International Critics Prize for Best First Feature, was Juliano Mer Khamis's Arna's Children. Arna was a Jewish veteran of the Israel's 1948 War of Independence, and the filmmaker is her son. But the children of the title are Palestinian youngsters in refugee camps like Jenin. Although stricken with cancer, Arna ran a school for war-traumatized Palestinian youth from 1989 until her death in 1996, and she devoted her life to inspiring her charges with art and drama. Mer Khamis, himself a successful actor, was one of the instructors.

"You would hope that this exposure to creativity and self-expression would motivate these kids to transcend their oppression. Perhaps it did. Shown in footage shot in 2002, nearly all the young students seen in the older shots - sad-eyed, angry, but still innocent - have become terrorists and suicide bombers. Are they evil? Are they victims? And the Jews? Why do these young men refer to Arna as their mother even as they set out to kill Israeli soldiers? And can art point the way to wickedness as well as redemption? Mer Khamis offers no answers, only the uncompromising facts and a detached, compassionate, and discerning ear and eye."

According to the press release:
"A brief memorial will precede the film. The Friends of the Freedom Theatre in New York have made the short "The Freedom Theatre Today" (15-20 min) available in order to celebrate the project's continuing vibrance; it will be screened following ‘Arna's Children.'"
 It starts tonight at 7:30 p.m. at:

113 Sever Hall

Harvard University

(Sever Hall can be accessed from the Harvard Yard gate on Quincy St. as shown on this map.)