Opening night of the 3rd Annual Houston Palestine Film Festival was a huge success. C-47 Houston magazine was there to experience the event, Thursday night, April 16th, 2009 at the El Dorado Ballroom at 2319 Elgin just south of 288 in Houston, Texas. People from all walks of life came to the ballroom to find food, atmosphere and a common goal of kicking off the film festival. The Festival is scheduled to run on the weekends of April 17th to April 18th and again the following week April 24th to April 25th. All screening start at 7PM at the Rice Media Center on the campus of Rice University. 

Filmmaker Annemarie Jacir, from Jordan, and lead actress and poet Suheir Hammad were in attendance at the opening night kickoff of the festival. They will be screening their feature film "Salt of the Sea" Friday night, April 17th at the Rice Media Center. Both Ms. Jacir and Ms. Hammad graced the standing room audience with poetry from their personal collections and talked a bit about the film. 

Hosted by NAAP-Houston the kick-off was started by hosts Mr. Marlon Hall, a poet in his own right, and Ms. Sary Joudah, committee member of the Houston Palestine Film Festival. They kept the audience entertained between the transition of the various poets that included Mr. Rick Lowe, Ms. Empress Winters and Mr. Michael Taylor. 

C-47 Houston magazine was their to support our film festivals. We scraped up enough nerve to take pictures without intruding to much on the good time that was unfolding at this opening night. You can see the pictures by (clicking here) 

www.C47Houston.com