Palestine

Gaza, today. Sixty-year-old fisherman Issa is secretly in love with Siham, a woman who works at the market with her daughter Leila. When he discovers an ancient phallic statue of Apollo in his fishing nets, Issa hides it, not knowing what to do with this mysterious and potent treasure. Yet deep inside, he feels that this discovery will change his life forever. Strangely, his confidence starts to grow and eventually he decides to approach Siham.

First presented at the 2020 Venice Film Festival, official Palestine selection for the 2021 Academy Awards. Read More »

Paradise Now (Arabic: الجنّة الآن‎) is a 2005 film directed by Hany Abu-Assad about two Palestinian men preparing for a suicide attack in Israel. It won a Golden Globe for best foreign language film and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category.

“The film is an artistic point of view of that political issue,” Abu-Assad said. “The politicians want to see it as black and white, good and evil, and art wants to see it as a human thing.” Read More »

Quote:
“Where do the birds fly after the last sky?” asks Mahmoud Darwich, and award-winning Palestinian director Elia Suleiman in his latest film asks the same question through his alter-ego, ES. ES escapes from Palestine seeking an alternative homeland, only to find that Palestine is trailing behind him. The promise of a new life turns into a comedy of errors: however far he travels, from Paris to New York, something always reminds him of home. It Must Be Heaven is a comic saga exploring identity, nationality and belonging, in which Suleiman asks the fundamental question: where is the place we can truly call home? Read More »

To show solidarity with Palestinians, Amercian peace activist Rachel Corrie engaged in civil disobedience in a combat zone in the Gaza Strip; the circumstances that led to her death by bulldozer (or its debris) are still debated. Read More »

Quote:
The Time That Remains is a semi‐autobiographical film, in four episodes, about a family, my family, from 1948 until recent times. The film is inspired by my father’s private diaries, starting from when he was a resistance fighter in 1948, and by my mother’s letters to family members who were forced to leave the country. Combined with my intimate memories of them and with them, the film attempts to portray the daily life of those Palestinians who remained and were labelled “Israeli‐Arabs”, living as a minority in their own homeland. Read More »

Deceptively simple and executed with a documentary feel, this drama represents a highly personal journey home for expatriate Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman. The film is divided into two sections. The first documents the paradoxical but sleepy existence in the Arab part of Nazareth. The second part takes a more political view of the city and in it, Suleiman takes a more active role. He has come to his former home in search of inspiration, but what he sees are many disturbing images of Arab people trapped in a cultural identity crisis, a point best illustrated by the plight of a young Arab woman who wants more independence than traditionally allowed in her part of town but cannot find it because of prejudiced residents on the Jewish side. Read More »

Synopsis:
Nuns of the ‘Sisters of Mercy’ convent in the middle of the West Bank
wilderness have their daily routine of silence and prayer disrupted
when a family of religious Israeli settlers crash their car into the
convent’s wall.
The Sabbath is approaching and they need to get home urgently,
however, because of the Sabbath laws, the Israelis can’t operate a
phone to call for assistance, and the Nuns have taken a vow of
silence. Together they have to come up with an unorthodox plan to
help them get home. Read More »