3000 Nights – A Film by Mai Masri

Beirut-based Palestinian documentary filmmaker Mai Masri will screen her first feature film, 3000 Nights (3000 Layla) at Columbia University, for its New York premiere.

Inspired by the true story of a young Palestinian mother who gave birth to her child in an Israeli prison, 3000 Nights is a story about resilience and the imagination in a genre — the prison genre– that has rarely dealt with women’s experiences, let alone Palestinian women’s. Set in Nablus in 1980, Masri draws on realities she has both experienced first hand and explored in her earlier documentary work. Shot in a real prison in a cinema verite style with handheld cameras, the film has a raw documentary edge that resonates with the reality it portrays. What is it like to raise a child behind bars? How do women survive, educate each other, suspect and support each other in prison? What happens in this unique situation in which Palestinian political prisoners mix with Israeli women incarcerated on criminal charges?

Screened first at the BFI London Film Festival and recently at festivals in Toronto, Ramallah and Geneva, 3000 Nights has been described as “a poetic, compelling and raw allegory for freedom under occupation.” Prison is a widespread collective experience for Palestinians, but not only Palestinians. The film just received the Young Jury Prize at the International Film Festival on Human Rights in Geneva.

Masri’s reputation as a leading Palestinian documentary filmmaker rests on her award-winning films that include Beirut Diaries, Frontiers of Dreams and Fears, Children of Shatila, Children of Fire, Wild Flowers: Women of South Lebanon and several films made with Jean Chamoun including Suspended Time.

Q & A with the director follows the screening, moderated by Professor Hamid Dabashi, editor of Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema.

There will be a Master Class with Mai Masri the following evening. Don’t miss this chance!