Ramallah/PNN/

The Popular Art Centre announced the launch of the 22nd edition of the Palestine International Festival with activities to start on Wednesday with a singing performance by Obaider, a band who will present a mixture of diverse music and songs between Spain, Jordan, and Palestine on the stage of the Ramallah Cultural Palace.

“We chose the key as a slogan for this year’s festival, believing in its symbolism and cultural centrality. We look at the keys of return as a metaphor capable of uniting the Palestinian people at home and in the diaspora on a common struggle ground, while also capable of opening closed doors to artistic and social spaces. Despite the closures and permanent attempts of the occupation to divide our unity, we see ourselves as a cohesive group that holds our keys in our hands in order to open new horizons on the path to freedom and independence,” said the Popular Art Center in a press release.

“This year, the festival takes the 75th anniversary of the Nakba as a theme in which we open our memory rooms, so that the color of orange mixes with the blue of the sea, and the threads of the dress with olive roots complete the mural of return. From our point of view, the Nakba is not a transient historical event that is recorded in the pages of history and forgotten, rather, it is a pivotal event in which there is no statute of limitations on the right of return,” it added.

This year's festival will host a lineup of musicians, artists, and both Arab and local bands.

The sponsors of this year’s Palestine International Festival are the Palestinian Telecommunications Group, Bank of Palestine, Unipal, XL, and the Palestine Investment Fund, in partnership with the Ramallah Municipality.