George Ibrahim

Santa Claus tries to outrun a gang of knife-wielding youth. It's one of several vignettes of Palestinian life in Israel - in a neighborhood in Nazareth and at Al-Ram checkpoint in East Jerusalem. Most of the stories are droll, some absurd, one is mythic and fanciful; few words are spoken. A man who goes through his mail methodically each morning has a heart attack. His son visits him in the hospital. The son regularly meets a woman at Al-Ram; they sit in a car, hands caressing. Once, she defies Israeli guards at the checkpoint; later, ninja-like, she takes on soldiers at a target range. A red balloon floats free overhead. Neighbors toss garbage over walls. Life goes on until it doesn't.

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This inspired hybrid of documentary and fiction follows Jabir, who runs a mobile cinema from his old truck throughout the West Bank while his wife works to bring emergency medical care to Palestinians. When Jabir is invited by a spirited schoolteacher to make a screening in the old city of Jerusalem, he becomes obsessed with the idea of this pilgrimage and begins to investigate the possibilities.

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Haifa, nicknamed after the city of his love and hope, goes around and comes around in a Palestinian refugee camp. Although he is everybody's fool, there are many things that only he knows. He is closely related to the family of Abu Said, a former policeman who gains new hopes from the political developments. Oum Said, his wife, hangs her hope on the imminent release of their eldest son, Said, from jail. She tries to find him a bride to secure things for the future. Their youngest son, Siad, is cynical and rebellious. He refuses to believe things. Sabah, the 12 year old daughter is romancing the future and wants to find out what's in it for her. The different stories are interwoven into a very timely insight into the current Palestinian mind.

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A Palestinian girl of 17 who wants to get married to the man of her own choosing. Rana wakes up one morning to an ultimatum delivered by her father: she must either choose a husband from a preselected list of men, or she must leave Palestine for Egypt with her father by 4:00 that afternoon.

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The documentary records the memories of a group of Palestinian elders, mainly veterans from the 1948 expulsions. Their stories of refugee struggles are interspersed with poems of Mahmoud Darwish.

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