BROOKLINE — Michael Maria, programming director of the Boston Palestine Film Festival, will talk with historian and activist Assal Rad about her new book, "Don't Say Palestine: How the Media Manufactured Consent for Genocide," at a Brookline Booksmith event on Wednesday, Sept. 30.

The event starts at 7 p.m. It is not at the bookstore itself but at United Parish in Brookline, 15 Marion St., according to Brookline Booksmith. The Brookline Coalition for Peace and Boston Workers Circle are cosponsoring it. The bookstore asks attendees to RSVP. It says that depending on demand, an RSVP may be required to get in, and there will be no waiting list if the event reaches capacity.

A local voice for Palestinian film

Brookline Booksmith's event listing describes Maria as a Palestinian American born and raised in Massachusetts, with ancestral roots in Bethlehem. He has served on the Boston Palestine Film Festival's executive committee since 2011 and has been its programming director since 2017. According to the listing, he uses "the powerful media of film and art to center Palestinian creative expression."

The book

Rad is an activist, a historian of the modern Middle East, and a fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC and at DAWN, according to Brookline Booksmith. Her first book, "The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran," was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek, Foreign Policy, The Independent and The National Interest, and she has been a commentator on BBC World, Al Jazeera, CNN and NPR.

The event listing says Rad is known as the "headline fixer" for posts that point out what she sees as double standards in mainstream Western coverage of Gaza. The listing describes the book as "a searing indictment of Western media." It says Rad identifies a pattern of language in outlets including CNN, the Associated Press, the BBC and The New York Times, a pattern the book argues is used so consistently "that it amounts to a policy."

The festival turns 20

The conversation comes shortly before the 20th annual Boston Palestine Film Festival, which runs Oct. 16 to 25, according to the festival's website.

The festival opens Friday, Oct. 16, at 7 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with "Edward Said: Between Worlds," a 2026 feature documentary by Maiken Baird about the Palestinian American scholar and musician. The festival describes it as the first documentary made with full access to the Said family and estate. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with producer Sarah Mowaswes. After that comes a free, open-to-the-public opening night party at Time Out Market Boston at 9:30 p.m.; no tickets are required.

Screenings and events are listed at the MFA, MassArt, the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, and Boston University's Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground. Highlights on the schedule include:

  • "Who Killed Alex Odeh?" (Oct. 18, MFA), a documentary about the 1985 killing of the Palestinian American activist. The festival says it won the Special Jury Award for Journalistic Excellence at Sundance.
  • "Traces of Home" (Oct. 20, Brattle Theatre), in which filmmaker Colette Ghunim travels with her parents to find the ancestral homes they fled as children in Mexico and Palestine.
  • "Habibi Hussein" (Oct. 24, Coolidge Corner Theatre), about a Palestinian projectionist trying to restore an old movie theater's projector.
  • A shorts program at the MFA, including "Kismet," a Boston-set film about a Palestinian immigrant mother waiting to be reunited with her son.

An exhibit of work by artist Khaled Jarrar at Unbound Visual Arts in Brighton runs Oct. 17 to Dec. 13. The festival closes Sunday, Oct. 25, with "Palestine Comedy Club," a documentary about six Palestinian comedians touring a stand-up show across Palestine, at 4:30 p.m. at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. A free closing afterparty follows at the Coolidge.

Sources

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