THE FILM Qalqilya is a feature-length documentary film about Sajed, a visionary skater determined to build a club for the “X-Games,” an avant-garde group of misfits from Qalqilya, Palestine that skate, do parkour, and perform beatbox and hip-hop. Living in a conservative city surrounded by a wall and struggling to bring his community out of the margins, Sajed realizes he may have to risk everything in order to keep his dream alive.
Qalqilya was filmed over the course of three years and is now in post production. We are pursuing financial support to complete the film by the fall of 2017 so we can showcase it at festivals worldwide and seek distribution for a theatrical and/or television release.
THE JOURNEY Qalqilya has become much more than just a film. With support form all over the world, Qalqilya has inspired real change on the ground in Palestine. Director Adam Abel and Producer Mohammed Othman, while in the middle of production of their documentary, raised funding and project managed the construction of a state-of-the-art skate ramp in Qalqilya in 2013. In 2016, Adam and Mohammed partnered with US pro skater, Kenny Reed, to create SkateQilya: a youth empowerment program using skateboarding as a tool to teach art, community building and leadership skills to Palestinian girls and boys in Qalqilya. Having completed the first co-ed summer athletic camp in the north of the West Bank, Adam, Mohammed and Kenny are turning their project into a fully sustainable non-profit. To learn more and help visit www.skateqilya.org.
THE BUZZ Qalqilya and it’s inspired projects have received press from Vice, The Huffington Post, Al Jazeera, The Daily Beast, and other media outlets around the world. Festivals, including the Dubai International Film Festival, have expressed great interest in screening the film upon its completion. Over a dozen skate companies have partnered with SkateQilya by donating equipment for the kids and eagerly await the films release. Having already laid the groundwork to connect to a more mainstream audience through these relationships, we are confident that Qalqilya has the ability to reach more people than most films about Palestine.
YOUR HELP We hope you can join the adventure and donate here. To learn more, visit www.qalqilyathefilm.com.
Learn More: http://www.qalqilyathefilm.com/