A poignant homecoming at Leeds Palestinian Film Festival
Documentary maker Juman Quneis’s The Loud Silence tells a story of powerful and unexpected solidarity in West Yorkshire
The sun was blazing in Ramallah when I spoke to Juman Quneis. Through the screen, light shone across her living room — 29 degrees, she told me with a smile. Midway through our conversation, the adhan called out in the background. It was a small reminder of where she was calling from, the occupied West Bank, around 50 miles from Gaza, separated by walls and checkpoints.
Quneis, a film-maker and lecturer at Birzeit University, is preparing for the UK premiere of her new documentary, The Loud Silence, at this year’s Leeds Palestinian Film Festival. The film follows a group of women who come together every week in Leeds city centre, standing silently in protest against war and occupation. Known as the Women in Black, they are part of a wider network of women calling for peace across the world. The movement launched in West Jerusalem in January 1988, after the first intifada.
For Quneis, their story is personal and political. In October 2023, she came to West Yorkshire to complete a master’s degree in cinematography after years working as a broadcast journalist.
“When I arrived in Leeds, it was only a week before the war broke out in Gaza,” she says. “I was watching horrific news of a hospital being bombed, bodies torn, people screaming, and I just couldn’t stay in the cafe I was in. I stepped outside and saw these women, standing in silence, wearing black, holding banners saying ‘Stop killing children’.”
That meeting would shape the next year of her life. Away from her family in Ramallah and overwhelmed by the violence unfolding in Gaza, Quneis found comfort among the group.
“They were British women, many older, all very committed to defending Palestinian rights,” she says. “They stood there every week for Palestine. That moved me deeply. This film is a way for me to say ‘thank you’ to them.”
The Loud Silence tells the women’s stories about how they joined the group and how they grew to care so deeply about Palestine. One member, a Jewish woman, had once lived in Israel before leaving, unable to remain “on stolen land”. After returning to England, she founded the Leeds Women in Black. Another, a mother who lost her son, says she mourns for her son and all the sons of Palestinian mothers each time she stands in the square.
“The silence has its power,” says Quneis. “It’s loud with its impact. People stop and ask, ‘Why are these women standing here?’, in the cold, in black. Silence means mourning, sadness, grief. It’s also speechless pain. That’s why it’s loud.”
The Leeds Palestinian Film Festival runs across 10 venues in the city, including Hyde Park Picture House, community spaces and the University of Leeds, from 12 November to 6 December. Now in its 11th year, the festival showcases work by Palestinian and international film-makers. Highlights include a series of new films made by Gazan women as part of the Gaza International Festival for Women’s Cinema, and the screening of Palestine 36, Palestine’s official Oscar submission.
The premiere of Quneis’ film on 4 December is a full-circle moment. “I’m sure many people in Leeds have seen the Women in Black, but didn’t know who they were,” she says. “Now they will finally hear their stories and thoughts.”
Quneis hopes the film will remind audiences that solidarity doesn’t require grand gestures. “The women show that you can support Palestine without money, without travelling, without losing anything,” she says. “Anybody can do something small. These small things — standing, holding a banner — they make an impact one day.”
The 2025 Leeds Palestine Film Festival takes place at venues across the city, 12 November-6 December.
