Shashat Woman Cinema

About Shashat Woman Cinema

SHASHAT is a formally registered cultural NGO in Palestine whose focus is on women’s cinema and the social and cultural implications of women’s representations. It aims at building the capacity of Young Palestinian women filmmakers from outside the center, and the Palestinian filmmaking sector in general, which has suffered fragmentation due to internal and external conditions. Shashat, which means "screens" in Arabic, was formed in order to provide sustainability and continuity to these objectives. Limited resources, competition and exclusiveness have marked much of Palestine’s production activity. Israeli conditions of closure and checkpoints have also contributed significantly to this fragmentation. As a result, Shashat is intent upon creating networks and partnerships among the Palestinian filmmaking community, and also between it and other regional and international film communities. Although based in Ramallah, Shashat is committed to reaching under-represented communities, as it has established partnerships and collaborates with over a hundred community organizations across the West Bank in a pro-active strategy to assure territorial reach in areas where cultural life is weak, and in order to provide non-traditional audiences with exposure to films, particularly by women filmmakers. Shashat’s Board of Directors is composed of women and men active in the fields of culture, academia and development. We are committed in all of our activities to the integration of the creative, developmental and educational implications of cinema and women’s representations. This is the vision and mandate that underlies our activities and programs. Shashat is a unique NGO in Palestine, as there does not exist another organization in the country which has focused on and made as its priority, women’s representations in film and video. Culture and media can play a transforming