Israel & Palestine
The sixth installment of Filmatique’s Foreign Language Oscar Submissions series features films from Israel and Palestine.
A richly complex portrait of shifting alliances in the Middle East, Yuval Adler plumbs the elusive relationship between a young Palestinian informant and an Israeli intelligence officer in Bethlehem, his feature debut. Annemarie Jacir's first film Salt of This Sea traces a young Palestinian-American woman's return to the land of her ancestors; her second film, When I Saw You, follows the journey of a young boy and his mother into a Jordanian refugee camp after having been forced from their home during the Six Day War. Celebrated Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad's Omar is an award-winning love story set in the occupied West Bank; his following film The Idol charts the journey of a young singer from Gaza to the international stage. Yaron Shani and Scandar Copti’s Ajami offers a cross-sectional portrait of contemporary Israeli society as several women’s lives collide at a beachside hotel.
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Bethlehem
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Yuval Adler • Israel • 2013 • A complexly human portrait of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sanfur is seventeen years old, the younger brother of Ibrahim, a prominent Palestinian militia leader. Living with his domineering father and taciturn mother, it is clear that Sanfur's l...
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Salt of This Sea
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Annemarie Jacir • Palestine • 2008 • A portrait of a woman's determination to reclaim her birthright.
Sixty years after her grandparents' exile from Jaffa, Soraya feels something is not right. Departing Brooklyn for a homeland she has never known, she is greeted instead with susp...
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When I Saw You
Annemarie Jacir • 2012 • Palestine-Jordan
Annemarie Jacir’s second film observes the effects of the Six Day War on a young boy who has been displaced to a Jordanian refugee camp.
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The Idol
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Hany Abu-Assad • Palestine • 2016 • A teen smuggles himself across borders to audition for Arab Idol
Gaza, 2005. Despite the despair of their suroundings, ten-year-old Mohammed and his sister, Nour, spend their days immersed in childhood games and music, playing in a band with tw...
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Ajami
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Yaron Shani & Scandar Copti • Israel • 2009
Ajami is a bustling multi-ethnic neighborhood in Yaffa, a place where Palestinian immigrants, Israeli Arabs, Christians and Jews live alongside each other. They share the same streets, the same sorrows. Omar has been targeted in reveng...
