“RELENTLESS REFUSALS”
Screening Online: 17- 27 April, 2025 (Available worldwide - FREE / $5 suggested donation)
RSVP: artearchive.org
RELENTLESS REFUSALS features recent short animated films by The Hakawi Animation Team, and animators Naaman Azhari, and Arash Akhgari, presenting perspectives from characters that refuse to silently accept the conditions or struggles they face. Included are stories told from children’s perspectives who plainly see and refute their unjust situations, brought about either from within their own societies or by occupying forces. Other perspectives highlight protest movements or a rejection of the world as we know it.
Through workshops across refugee camps in Gaza, the Hakawi Animation Team has been working with children aged 10-13 to collectively bring to life their stories and lived experiences. The short stop-motion animations highlight various aspects of society in Gaza, with a lens that is playful and genuine but that does not shy away from the unbearable realities on the ground.
Engaging with diverse animation techniques, the works in RELENTLESS REFUSALS are able to convey the complex and at times contradicting emotions of their creators in a humanizing light. Each narrative contains elements of documentary storytelling, and reflects on the struggles of navigating situations and consequences often out of the protagonists’ control. Despite this, the stories are testimonies of experiences that are not unique to the individual creators, but that reflect larger urgent discourses that are taking place within communities around the region and beyond that cannot be silenced nor ignored.
RELENTLESS REFUSALS is curated by Lila Nazemian and is co-presented by ArteEast and UnionDocs. This program is part of the legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, which preserves and presents over 20 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.