“House of Hope” is the name of the Waldorf school in Al-Eizariya, a town in the occupied West Bank near Jerusalem, founded by Manar and her husband Milad. An elementary school, based on the Waldorf educational philosophy, that embraces non-violent resistance while supporting children in healing from trauma. Manar tries to offer young Palestinian students a safe haven, but she’s finding it increasingly difficult to do so.
Dutch filmmaker Marjolein Busstra started to film her friend Manar in 2022 and followed her at work and at home with her husband and their two children over the next three years — which is to say, before, during and in the aftermath of 7 October, 2023. It will be the most testing time for all of them, a period when hope has never been more precious…
Heartbreaking… A nuanced portrait of the impact of occupation. Amazingly, its subjects continue to plant, to teach, to hope.
Susan G Cole, POV magazine
Marjolein Busstra
Netherlands/Palestine
2025
In Arabic and English with English subtitles
Best International Feature, HotDocs
Book Tickets
Friday October 16
Sunday October 18
Monday October 19
Tuesday October 20
Friday October 23
Saturday October 24
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Cinematography
Abu Mosab
Editor
Saskia Kievits
Original Music
Jesse Koolhaas, Yamen Martini
Also Playing
All the Lovers in the Night
A lonely proofreader's isolated world begins to open through an unlikely friendship with a gentle physics teacher. Based on Mieko Kawakami's acclaimed novel, this luminous drama is a delicate meditation on loneliness, intimacy, and self-discovery.
Clarissa
Arie and Chuko Esiri’s Clarissa brings Mrs. Dalloway to present-day Lagos, with Sophie Okonedo playing the titular society hostess opposite David Oyelowo, Ayo Edebiri, and India Amarteifio in a Nigerian vision of class, privilege, and past lives.
Image: © Courtesy of Elevation Pictures
Opening Gala: The Debut
VIFF is honoured to open the festival with this special by-invitation screening of Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut. When meek Mona (Julianne Moore) lands a part in a musical, she fully inhabits her character, but grows increasingly untethered from reality.
Árru
Set against the mountains and fjords of northern Norway, Árru follows reindeer herder Maia as a proposed copper mine threatens her Sámi community, forcing her to fight to protect both her community and the land that sustains it.