Ibtisam Films produces films which have a strong personal voice exploring the borders and boundaries of Palestinian and Israeli society with a focus on women and minorities. The films explore gender, class, racism, collective and individual identity, history, the present and dreams for the future. Ibtisam Films is a platform for bold and brave filmmaking which confronts taboos, examines and decons
tructs structures of oppression. The film factory is committed to its workers, to their unique voices, to their progress and to an increasingly equal, free and creative society
About Ibtisam Mara'ana
Ibtisam was born in 1975 in Faradis, a Muslim, Arab, working class village in the north of Israel. At the age of 18 Ibtisam was accepted to film school where she began to create without previously ever having seen a film in a cinema. She immediately began working with the themes Ibtisam Films is still exploring today
Her first commercial release, Paradise Lost, is considered to be the first film to be made from the perspective of a Palestinian woman
The more society, both Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian, oppose Ibtisam's honesty and ideals the deeper her work goes with an increasing network of supporters and creative-collaborators both locally and internationally
