Lefty Film Club: Foragers (Palestine, 2022)

Let's watch National Gallery's film screening of **Jumana Manna's Foragers** **(Palestine, 2022)** together! Please buy your own tickets ($10) here: https://www.nationalgallery.sg/sg/en/festivals/painting-with-light-2025/special-focus/foragers.html **4.15** Gather outside National Gallery's Ngee Ann Kongsi Auditorium (Level B1, City Hall Wing) for a quick chat and introductions. Note: Join this Telegram group https://t.me/+GgxiWG0O3Qo3MGU1 to contact one another as the host will not be there. **430pm** Film screening starts. **530pm** Approximate end of screening. Option to continue discussion, grab a bite/drink, etc. **Synopsis:** Foragers chronicles the long-running disputes over the practice of foraging for edible wild plants native to Palestine/Israel. Shot in the Golan Heights, Galilee and Jerusalem, the film employs a blend of fiction and documentary to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs, and on the Palestinians who keep them. The laws prohibit the gleaning of the artichoke-like ‘akkoub, and za’atar (thyme), and have resulted in fines and criminal trials for hundreds of mostly elderly Palestinians caught picking these plants. While the Palestinian foragers dismiss these laws as a front for legislation that further impoverishes and alienates them from their land, Israeli state representatives insist it is their duty to institute environmental protections.