The doorbell of Jones' house - the Englishman - rang, interrupting a warm family session in which the family gathered to eat cake, and when Jones opened the door, he found an employee in front of him telling him that there was another homeless family that could not find a home.

Jones showed his sympathy and asked the man if he wanted clothes or any aid for them. The man smiled and said no, they just want to stay at your house.

The film attempts to present the symbolism of the story of the Israeli occupation in the event that it occurs in Britain now with the British themselves, according to a fictional dramatic scenario to simulate the story of the Nakba in a contemporary context. The film was produced by the Palestinian Return Center in London and the British “Apology for the Balfour Declaration” campaign

Jones was surprised by the man's insolence and before he showed any means of resistance, a number of heavily armed soldiers suddenly appeared and stormed the house to expel the occupants, and replace them with the homeless family waiting outside.

At that time, the camera moved to a scene dating back to 1917, when British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour was dictating his famous speech to his private secretary in what would later be known as the Balfour Declaration in the movie “100 Balfour Street” directed by the British-Palestinian director Anas Al-Karmi in 2017, which was among the shows International Films at the "Mercy to the Worlds" International Film Festival for Short Films in Turkey this year.

The film attempts to present the symbolism of the story of the Israeli occupation if it occurs in Britain now with the British themselves, according to a fictional dramatic scenario to simulate the story of the Nakba in a contemporary context. The film was produced by the Palestinian Return Center in London and the British "Apology for the Balfour Declaration" campaign.

It is an 11-minute short film, and it is one of the films that dealt with Arab issues that participated in the international screenings of the festival.

Among these films is also the movie “Salt Hunter” produced in 2011 by the Palestinian director Ziad Bakri, who is the son of the well-known Palestinian actor and director Muhammad Bakri, who played the role of an old man who goes out every day to fish and does not catch any fish, so that we discover at the end of the film that he was fishing in the Dead Sea, where No fish there.

The Arab presence in the festival at the level of films was somewhat small, as the films are relatively old compared to their Turkish counterparts or from other countries, which indicates the weakness of Arab cinematic production of short films.

The paradox was that this weak presence at the level of films was matched by a qualitative and strong presence at the level of the jury and the main guests of the festival.

As they were the stars of this session in the festival undisputed.

This session was marked by the launch of the production market as part of the festival's activities, where directors meet producers and present their short film projects to them in order to obtain funding.

It is an opportunity for Arab directors to obtain this support to produce short films on a subject related to Arab and Islamic culture.

It was also noticeable that the issues of spiritual cinema were marginalized in the films of the festival, although the theme of the festival deals mainly with a religious and spiritual issue, which are the values ​​brought by our master Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace.

And had it not been for the symposium in which the French-Tunisian director Nasser Al-Khemir spoke and touched on the subject, the issue would have been completely absent from the festival.

The symposium was linked to Khmer’s artistic journey, and because a number of his works dealt with what could be classified as spiritual cinema, many questions were directed to him about this matter, including his famous movie “Baba Aziz” in 2005 about the journey of a blind dervish who travels with his granddaughter Ishtar through the desert, And the movie “Searching for “Sheikh Muhyiddin” in 2012, in which it deals with the influence of Sheikh Muhieddin bin Arabi on contemporary reality through a trip touring 10 countries.

target foreign audience

Film screenings were held in the middle of Istanbul's famous commercial Istiklal Street, near Taksim Square, at Atlas Cinema.

It is a huge cinema hall with good technical capabilities.

It was clear that the target was the English-speaking foreign audience, along with the Turkish audience, of course, because the second language of the festival is English besides Turkish, and all the films were subtitled into English, and simultaneous translation was available during the seminars accompanying the festival.

In addition to the place of the show in this tourist area, which is crowded with visitors of different nationalities, and attendance was free without tickets.

However, the attendance was not large, and the presence of noticeable advertisements about the festival, even outside the cinema hall, did not catch my attention.

If the English-speaking audience is mainly targeted, why was the festival not held at the height of one of the tourist seasons, or why was it not accompanied by an English-language media and advertising campaign?

Why was the Turkish presence modest?

I imagine if the Arabic language was added to the languages ​​​​of the festival, it would be more effective and more effective, especially since there are a huge number of Arabic speakers, whether tourists or residents, and a large number of Syrian refugees residing in the country, in addition to the Arab minority residing in the southern provinces of Turkey.

All of these are not targeted by cinemas operating in the country, which only offer Turkish or English films subtitled in Turkish.

On the general artistic level, the festival seems promising because it is among the few, or perhaps almost non-existent, festivals that take the Islamic religious and spiritual aspect into account as a general theme for films, in contrast to dozens of festivals that deal with Christian, Jewish and other religions.

Among these festivals are some small festivals in the United States and Europe that deal with Arab and Muslim issues there.

It does not seem that there is a relatively large festival of this size except for this festival and the Kazan International Islamic Film Festival in the Republic of Tatarstan of the Russian Federation.

And the matter is not related to religion, as much as it is related to the stories of those who embrace this religion and their right to express themselves in cinema.