The organisers of the third Cannes Palestine Pavilion are seeking a long-term funding mechanism to guarantee its annual presence.
Pavilion co-organiser Salma Abu Ayyash is looking to establish “support that is more consistent and has continuity, so we’re not every year trying to figure out who’s going to support us”.
Without the possibility of state funding, the pavilion is made possible with the support of international partners including the Scottish Documentary Institute, Durban FilmMart, Visions du Réel, the Iraqi Film Fund and Athens-based International Emerging Film Talent Fund.
The pavilion is organised by the Palestine Film Institute (PFI) and led by Palestinian-American engineer and activist Abu Ayyash, Brussels-based filmmaker and PFI co-founder Mohanad Yaqubi and Palestinian-Serbian producer Rashid Abdelhamid.
“At the PFI, we are all volunteers. This is also a challenge,” noted Abdelhamid, a producer of Tarzan and Arab Nasser’s Un Certain Regard 2025 best directing prize winner Once Upon A Time In Gaza.
Abu Ayyash is confident the pavilion will find long-term support. “We have very solid relationships with institutions that want to see us to see Palestinian narrative have a place. We’re not going anywhere.”
The pavilion has previously run in 2018 and 2025, as well as being based out of the Algerian Pavilion in 2024. This year’s programme of talks and project showcases, which runs until Tuesday, May 19.
One project taking part in a documentary works-in-progress event is Flavia Cappellini’s Gaza Sunbirds, produced by Harald House (Belgium), Perfidious Pictures (UK), Urbania (France) and Philistine Film (Palestine). The documentary explores a para-cycling team based in Gaza, with members of the team arriving in Cannes on Saturday, May 16, aboard a former Gaza flotilla boat.
Yaqubi stressed it is important for Palestinian filmmakers to be educated on the business side of filmmaking.
“If we don’t have filmmakers who are aware of the machine and the process of the industry, we won’t be able to control the narrative… We don’t want to only do a pavilion when there are films there [in Cannes official selection]. It’s a place where we have filmmakers coming and doing meetings.”
Abu Ayyash added the overall mission of the pavilion is “a future where Palestinian filmmakers possess the infrastructure, freedom and collective agency necessary to produce, circulate and sustain their work. It’s about our narrative sovereignty, and plurality of voices.”
Cannes’ Palestinian presence this year includes Rakan Mayasi’s Yesterday The Eye Didn’t Sleep in Un Certain Regard, along with a delegation of around 40 filmmakers and producers being supported by the PFI.
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