Crossing Borders, Palestine - Israel

Nazareth is a com­plete­ly normal city in the Middle East, where the Arabic neigh­bour­hood is embroiled in the daily war between the loners, the eccentrics, and the aggres­sive grum­blers. What one person man­ages to build up, anoth­er tears down in a con­tact, almost neu­rot­ic cycle; where one person plants a seed, anoth­er inces­sant­ly scat­ters his trash. Even more hope­less is the rela­tion­ship between the Israelis. Suleiman, the direc­tor, plays a man from Jerusalem, who can only meet his girl friend from Ramal­lah at a check­point on the out­skirts of the city. The lovers are wit­ness to the daily chi­canery and insan­i­ty which has become nor­mal­i­ty at the border of absur­di­ty in no man’s land. Sur­re­al, absurd, and deeply moving are the moments which direc­tor Elia Suleiman por­trays in his film about the Pales­tin­ian-Israeli Con­flict. The first Pales­tin­ian film ever to be shown in the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, Suleiman was award­ed the “Prix du Jury”. At the same time, the Acad­e­my Awards reject­ed the film for Oscar con­tention on the grounds that it came from Pales­tine, an “unrecog­nised nation.” 

The white Ford vans dri­ving around all over Pales­tine once belonged to the Israeli army. After the Oslo Agree­ments, they were given to former Pales­tin­ian col­lab­o­ra­tors as a source of … read more

Rana wakes up one morn­ing to an ulti­ma­tum deliv­ered by her father: She must either choose a hus­band from a pre-select­ed list of eli­gi­ble men, or she must accom­pa­ny her … read more

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 … read more