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Canberra Today 15°/17° | Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Facebook lifts ban on Canberra festival film

Ramallah Mayor Musa Hadid.

FACEBOOK has recanted and blamed its disabling of advertising for the Canberra documentary film festival, “Stronger than Fiction”, as being “in error”.

Facebook initially deemed the promotion of the David Osit film “Mayor”, a Palestinian documentary portrait of the charismatic mayor of Ramallah, Musa Hadid, as “political advertising”.

The film had been in the program for months, well before recent unrest in Israel and Palestine, and according to the festival’s directors, Hannah de Feyter and Deborah Kingsland, the screening will go ahead as planned on May 28 at Dendy Cinemas in Civic.

Mayor Hadid is shown briefing the nine abseiling Santas for a Christmas parade, consulting with disgruntled shepherds about drainage problems in their pastures and trying to cut through marketing jargon in city branding meetings.

De Feyter and Kingsland, who had appealed against the Facebook ruling, believe the day-to-day frustrations of work in the public service are likely to chime with many Canberrans, and that the unusually humorous film about local government might throw a lighter and much-needed perspective on the current flood of news stories from the Middle East.

The screening will be followed by de Feyter’s interview with the director David Osit and again Stronger than Fiction audience members will have exclusive access to the Premium Lounge for wine and conversation after the screening.

All details of the screening may be found here

Facebook censors festival’s promotion of a film

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