UK/Palestine. 2017. Arabic.
This film is not a story, this film is a statement. It is a statement by non-normative people in the MENA region, who refuse to define and box themselves. The film does not only point out the multiple struggles non-normative people face, but also conveys the message that the key to resistance is love.
Bio: Nof Nasser-Eddin, Nour Abu-Assab
Dr Nof Nasser Eddin obtained her MA in Race and Ethnic Studies, and PhD in Sociology from the University of Warwick. For her PhD, Dr Nof carried out fieldwork in Amman, to look at the intersection of class and gender and its influence on women’s economic activities. Nof suggests in her thesis that there needs to be a shift in the way class in the Middle East is being studied, and promotes looking at cultural class and not only economic class indicators. She is also supportive of the idea that women in the Middle East have agency and an understanding of the situation of women, as well as work on women’s issues in the Arab World, must take women’s agency into account. Nof is currently developing a piece of research on practices of masculinity among Palestinian men living under occupation in East Jerusalem from socioeconomic and political perspectives.
Dr Nour Abu Assab has extensive experience as a practitioner and an academic in the fields of human rights, gender, sexuality, ethnic and sectarian conflict, as well as the general fields of development and stabilisation. She was awarded a PhD in Sociology from the University of Warwick in 2012, and an MA in Race and Ethnic Studies in 2006. Her thesis was awarded the Middle East Research Competition Award in 2008 for its quality and excellence. Her PhD thesis looked at Narratives of Ethnicity and Nationalism among the Circassian community in Jordan from a feminist perspective.