DIVINE INTERVENTION
(Yadon ilaheyya)
France, Palestine 2002 | 92 Min. | 35 mm, OmU
Jaber and Sanah live in a refugee camp in Ramallah. Sanah works here for the Palestinian ambulance service. Jaber has dreamed up quite a special job to do something about the oppressive situation in the place. He runs a mobile cinema for children in the refugee camps of Ramallah, Gaza and the West Bank. Not a simple job, as the Palestinian film projectionist has to negotiate numerous Israeli control points every day with his bulky film projector and heavy film rolls. This all costs time, nerves and patience, and is not always without danger. Rashid Maharawi’s fictitious documentary tells poetically and with realism of Palestinian reality (“it looks like a proper American action film here,” Jaber’s mechanic comments on the Israeli tanks and street blockades during one of their cinema trips) and of the belief in the utopian power of cinema beyond these daily scenes of a state of siege.