[AL-AWDA-News] Starting Today in California

For Immediate Release
May 14, 2008

Palestine: 60 Years of Forced Exile - Time for Return!

Embassy Suites Hotel Anaheim South, 11767 Harbor Boulevard
Garden Grove, California, 92840
May 16-18, 2008

** world-renowned speakers ** discussions ** workshops ** exhibits ** book signings ** film showings ** presentations ** projects update ** solidarity items ** activist networking ** lunch/dinner ** musical performance ** mass protest and march **

Register now: The 6th Annual International Al-Awda Convention will mark the 60th year of the Palestinian Nakba and the struggle to return. It is the most important and largest Al-Awda Convention to date with representatives taking part from 22 states across the US, Canada, Europe and Palestine. The very first contingent to arrive for the convention from Chicago is already here. Our first arrivals from Nazareth and Haifa Palestine, and London England are here!


Saturday LUNCH: The lunch on Saturday May 17, 2008 with keynote Dr. Salman Abu Sitta is nearly sold out with a few spaces remaining.

Saturday DINNER: The Saturday Dinner with Bishop Atallah Hanna and Dr. Sheikh Taiseer Al-Tamimi are selling fast. To make your reservations today, go to http://al-awda.org/convention6/reserve.html and follow the simple instructions.


Film Screenings

Among the films that will be shown at the convention on Saturday May 17, 2008 is a must-see World Premier of "Twenty Five Thousand Tents - May be More" (2008), by two young highly talented Palestinian filmmakers, Samer Salameh and Ala’a al-Sadi from the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria. "Twenty Five Thousand Tents - May be More" is a timely, powerful and moving documentary. It conveys the current circumstances and, in their own words, personal experiences and aspirations of Palestinians stuck, most for more than two years, in al-Tanf camp, located in no man's land on the Syria Iraq border. The film was sponsored by Al-Awda, PRRC and Al-Hawiyah. Subtitles in English.

Other films featured on Saturday May 17, 2008 include:


•"Forced Exile and Odyssey” - A unique documentary about the work of world-renowned Palestinian artists Ismail Shammout and Tamam Al-Akhal

•"Confronting the Wall: Art and Resistance in Palestine" (2006 documentary by Alan Craig)

•"The Presence of Absence in the Ruins of Kafr Bir’im" (2006) followed by discussion with filmmaker John Halaka

•"Driving to ZigZigland" (2006, feature film) followed by discussion with filmmaker Nicole Ballivian


For the complete convention program, please see http://al-awda.org/convention6/program.html


Don't Delay! To make your reservations today, go to http://al-awda.org/convention6/reserve.html and follow the simple instructions.

Many thanks to all the individuals, organizations, and businesses who have thus far provided their support with timely advertising, exhibitor table reservations or sponsorship. The exhibitor tables are sold out and program book which will be given to all the attendees at the convention (all in color) is at the printer. Sponsorship opportunities are still available. Please see http://www.al-awda.org/convention6/sponsor.html

For information about the Historic Mass Rally To Mark 60 Years of Palestinian Nakba and Struggle to Return, please see our flyer at http://al-awda.org/convention6/al-awda_march.pdf

For more information about the convention, please go to http://al-awda.org/convention6

Until Return

Sixth Al-Awda Convention Host Committee
The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-685-3243
Fax: 360-933-3568
E-mail: info@al-awda.org
WWW: http://al-awda.org

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC) is the largest network of grassroots activists and students dedicated to Palestinian human rights. We are a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3) organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations to PRRC are tax-deductible.

...will return
2005 oil painting by Ismail Shammout