Ramzi Maqdisi is a Palestinian filmmaker, writer and actor. His work addresses the minute and every day aspects of life under occupation.

Using subtle, subversive and visual storytelling he seeks to convey an experience of the overwhelming nature of occupation through zooming in on the tiny details that we all, as humans, share.

For b-side 2021

Ramzi is collaborating with Olivia Furber to create ‘The Land’s Heart Is Greater Than It’s Map’: an alternative guided tour of the only city that exists twice, once on earth and once in heaven: Yaboos.

In Yaboos daily life is stranger than fiction: you can see the sea but are forbidden to touch it, being honest is illegal and those with ancestors from the city are forbidden to enter it. The tour questions who has the authority to give a coherent narrative of a city and how we are able to come into contact with the ‘real’ essence of a place. Your journey to this distant city will take place within Portland and requires only walking shoes and an open imagination.