A Film by Omar Robert Hamilton | 19 min Fiction Short | Arabic w/ English Subtitiles | Produced by Idioms Film | Producer Louise Lewarne | Palestine / Egypt / Qatar / UK
Awards & Nominations
Winner, Prix UIP, Rotterdam 2013
Winner, Best Short from the Arab World, Abu Dhabi 2013
Winner, Best Short Film, Yerevan 2014
Nominee, Tiger Award for Short Film, Rotterdam 2013
Nominee, Best Short Film, European Film Awards, December 2013
Nominee, Alwan for the Arts Film Award 2013Abu Dhabi
Screenings
Abu Dhabi
29/10/13 - Abu Dhabi Film Festival
Argentina
10/11/12 - Latinarab Film Festival
Australia
04/08/13 - Melbourne International Film Festival
Belgium
12/10/13 - Film Festival Ghent
29/03/13 - Eye on Palestine Festival
Bosnia
19/08/13 - Sarajevo International Film Festival
15/08/14 - Sarajevo International Film Festival
Bulgaria
21/01/14 - Menar Film Festival
10/03/14 - Sofia International Film Festival
Canada
31/08/13 - Montreal World Film Festival
29/09/13 - Toronto Palestine Film Festival
China
25/04/14 - EU Shorts Festival, Macau
Colombia
01/05/14 - Festival de Cine Europeo
Croatia
09/07/14 - Mediterranean Film Festival, Split
12/07/14 - Pula Film Festival
23/08/14 - Avvantura
Czech Republic
8/05/13 - iShorts / Prague
Egypt
19/03/13 - Mosireen / Cairo
26/03/13 - Townhouse / Cairo
04/05/14 - Palestine Month, the Netherlands Institute
14/06/14 - Shorts Revisited, Zawya
Finland
10/03/14 - Tampere Film Festival
France
01/02/14 - Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival
10/09/14 - Cinambule
Germany
20/03/14 - The Arab Film Festival, Berlin
Italy
09/08/13 - La Guarimba International Film Festival
30/08/13 - Circuito OFF / Venice
05/10/13 - Corti & Cigarettes / Rome
Morocco
18/09/14 - Opening film, Assilah Film Festival
Netherlands
29/01/13 - International Film Festival Rotterdam
Norway
16/03/14 - Minimalen Film Festival
12/06/14 - Norwegan Short Film Festival, Grimstad
Palestine
08/03/13 - Israeli Apartheid Week / Gaza
06/06/13 - The Sakakini Centre / Ramallah
19/11/13 - Al Kasaba Short Film Week / Ramallah
Poland
25/05/14 - Krakow Film Festival
Russia
03/08/13 - Open Cinema Festival / St Petersburg
Serbia
29/11/13 - Videomedeja
Slovakia
18/10/13 - Festival Acko
South Korea
01/05/14 - Busan Film Festival
Spain
13/06/13 - Festival Internacional de Cine de Huesca
08/11/13 - Sevilla Festival de Cine Europeo
17/11/13 - Bilbao Zinebi 55
18/09/14 - Tenerife Short Film Festival
Sweden
19/03/14 - CinemAfrica
Turkey
19/11/13 - Izmir Short Film Festival
20/09/14 - Adana Film Festival
UK
04/05/13 - London Palestine Film Festival
24/07/13 - The Mosaic Rooms / London
01/09/13 - Bold Tendencies / London
15/09/13 - The Invisible Line / London
03/10/13 - Raindance Film Festival / London
08/12/13 - Bristol Palestine Film Festival
15/03/14 - PalFest Comes to London
22/06/14 - East End Film Festival
USA
02/10/13 - Boston Palestine Film Festival
15/03/14 - Arab American National Museum
12/04/14 - Athens Int Film + Video Festival
20/04/14 - Chicago Palestine Film Festival
Synopsis
He has returned to Palestine. Caught between his brother's past and his child's future, one man's choice triggers catastrophe for his family.
Director’s Statement
Palestine, as a subject, can feel inaccessible and overburdened with history. Too often genuine drama and style is lost in ideology and political correctness. But film-makers have a responsibility, art has an obligation to tell people's stories, to tell the stories that are being buried. With this short I think we are telling a relevant and resonant story, and telling it in a way that is both challenging and dramatic. Having worked in Palestine for the last five years, living there for a month or two each year, I have been constantly thinking about how cinema - our most immersive artform - can hope to recreate even a fraction of the Palestinian experience. It is an experience that is at once deeply complex and remarkably simple. It is both cinematically physical and invisibly psychological. It is living forever in an uncertain present while both the narratives of the past and the possibilities of the future are under attack. It is an experience that needs to be told and retold thousands of different ways - this is just one of them.
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