Join Amnesty International Puget Sound AIPS and Local Group AI-270 on Sunday, January 22, 2023 from 6-8pm PT for a streaming of the film There Is A Field, followed by a panel discussion of experts in several fields of study.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting as well as receiving a follow-up reminder.
Summary of Film:
In October 2000, a police officer shot and killed unarmed 17-year old Asel Asleh. His story is tragically familiar for Americans, but Asel was not killed in Ferguson, New York City, Atlanta, or Minneapolis. Asel was a Palestinian teenager who was murdered by Israeli police as he participated in a demonstration, calling for an end to the Israeli occupation and settler-colonization.
There Is A Field begins as a play about Asel’s life and his death, told from the perspective of his older sister, Nardin. Through Nardin’s struggle to cope with the murder of her brother, the play offers a uniquely personal lens for learning about intersecting systems of oppression, the root causes of state-sanctioned violence and structural racism.
Donkeysaddle Projects (DSP) filmed a performance-reading of There Is A Field at the Peñasco Theatre Collective in 2018, performed by activists, artists and organizers from the Movement for Black Lives. There Is A Field film weaves together their performance with archival footage of Asel, and the activists’ own realizations of the parallels they see between Asel’s story and the experiences of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) communities in the United States. The film, set in Palestine and performed by BIPOC artists and activists in the US, builds solidarity across intersectional struggles for liberation and decolonization, and is sure to spark conversation and connection.
The film “There Is A Field” will be followed by a panel discussion to include the following experts in their fields:
Jen Marlowe is an award-winning author and documentary filmmaker, founder of Donkeysaddle Projects and director and producer of the documentary film “There Is A Field”. She also wrote the play that the film is based on.
Nada Elia PhD, is a diaspora Palestinian scholar and activist who teaches in the American Cultural Studies program at Western Washington University WWU, and is the author of Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts: Feminism, Inter/Nationalism, and Palestine.
Alicia Koutsoulieris, Amnesty International, USA country specialist for the Israel Occupied Territories – Palestinian Authority – IOPT-PA.
Jesse Hagopian is an educator, author, and part of the 2011 African Heritage Eyewitness Palestine delegation. Jesse’s African ancestors survived the middle passage and enslavement on plantations in Mississippi and Louisiana.
