[MPACUK Comment: This documentary will not only bring tears to your eyes as the brutal occupation by Israel is unveild, but will also leave you in awe of this peace activist that has dodged Israeli Defence Force tanks and has stood in lines of fire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian children. She is simply something else. MPAC urge you all to see the viewing of her documentary on the 26th of January, it will leave you with a desperate urge and necessity to do more then just pray for the Palestinian's plight.]

Visit Palestine, documentary by amazing film maker Katie Barlow

"An astonishing piece of work, a wonderful film…quite unlike anything I’ve seen." John Pilger.

What drives a young, well-educated Westerner to volunteer as a "peace activist" in the Middle East? Caiomhe Butterly is one of a growing number of volunteers who risk their own safety to intervene in the long-running and bloody conflict between Israel and Palestine. Several internationals, including her, have now been injured. Some have died.

In this film, she describes witnessing the aftermath of the attack on Jenin in April 2002. The film follows her work, the main emphasis being "the accompaniment of communities at risk". Despite being threatened, shot in the leg and deported later that year, she is determined to go back. In the interim, she brings her story back to her native Ireland at public meetings, receives a Time Magazine "European Hero Award", and travels to post-war Iraq to visit the Palestinian refugee camps. She arrives back in Jenin, shortly before a young woman from that community, Hanadi Jaradat, blows herself up in a suicide bombing in Haifa.

Activists such as Butterly are usually stereotyped as lunatics, meddlers or saints. This film offers an insight into a brave, honest, determined yet self-critical woman who takes direct action to the limit, with no quest for glory. She also serves as a conduit into the everyday lives of Palestinians, who are also usually presented to the viewer in a one-dimensional way, as fighters or victims, heroes or fanatics. The film gives us a rare chance to see what she calls "the spaces of beauty and joy" created by a people under occupation.

Documentary: VISIT PALESTINE (78 minutes).

Location: CURZON SOHO
Date: April 9th
Time: 2pm

AND

Location: Riverside Studios, Hammersmith
Date: April the 5th
Time: 7pm.

Read the following for more background:

Caiomhe Butterly - a writer's experience of her work

Courage under fire - By the Guardian, after she was shot whilst standing between a firing IDF tank and three young Palestinian children.

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