The first edition of the Palestinian Independent Film Festival (PIFF) in Crete took place from 5 to 7 July 2024 in Agios Nikolaos, marking PIFF’s first edition beyond Cyprus. Organized locally by the Anti-Racism Committee of Agios Nikolaos, the edition was shaped by a clear intention: to bring Palestinian cinema into different parts of the city and to meet audiences through movement, presence, and shared space.

Rather than being hosted in a single venue, the festival unfolded across multiple locations over three days, including Cristina Cinema, Pano Elounda, and Neapolis Court House Square. By moving across Agios Nikolaos, the programme turned the city itself into a cultural map, allowing cinema to circulate through public and communal spaces and to engage audiences in varied local contexts.

Screenings were accompanied by Q&A sessions and discussions that grounded the films in lived experience and collective memory. Among the guests was Hany Massoud, Director of the Intensive Care Unit at Agios Nikolaos Hospital, a displaced Palestinian originally from Safuriyya near Nazareth, whose family was forced into displacement in 1948 and later settled in Nablus. His participation connected the films to personal histories of displacement carried within the local community.

The programme also included discussions with Mohammad El Sayyed, President of the Palestinian Community in Greece, whose family was displaced from Sasa to Lebanon in 1948 and who is now based in Athens. These conversations bridged cinema with broader questions of exile, memory, and political continuity across generations and geographies.

A live online Q&A connected Agios Nikolaos directly with Palestine through a conversation with filmmaker Ward Kayyal, director of Hamza: Chasing the Ghost Chasing Me, who joined from Haifa, where he continues to live and work. The discussions were moderated by Jafra Abu Zoulouf, PIFF Director and a Palestinian artist originally from Daliyat al-Karmel, near Haifa, now based in Cyprus.

Together, these encounters transformed the screenings into spaces of dialogue where cinema met lived testimony, political reality, and collective reflection. The 1st Edition of PIFF in Crete affirmed the festival’s commitment to decentralized cultural work and demonstrated how Palestinian cinema can be held through local organizing, shared responsibility, and meaningful exchange across borders.