Paradise Now

Colour, 35 mm
France, Germany, Netherlands, Palestine, 2005, 90 min
Section: Horizons
Oficiální stránky: www.celluloid-dreams.com

Synopsis

This film by a Palestinian filmmaker working in the Netherland offers at least a partial answer to a burning issue: who are suicide bombers and what are their motives? Friends from childhood, Said and Khaled live in Nábulus and work in a car repair shop. One evening, they are told that they have been selected as martyrs for a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. The young men accept the task as read. They spend the last night with their families who cannot be allowed to find out the truth. In the morning, they undergo the appropriate rituals at headquarters, then get through the barbed wire fence into Israeli territory. The operation is unexpectedly foiled, however, but they still have time to consider whether or not to go ahead. A girl called Suha plays an important role; she has lived abroad for a long time and affirms that there are other ways to resolve the difficult situation of the Palestinians than by murdering innocent people.  The film strives for objectivity and simple realism, thus all the more palpable is the tragic dilemma of a divided land and its people.

About the director

Hany Abu-Assad (b. 1961, Nazareth), Palestinian screenwriter, director and producer, studiede engineering in the Netherlands. There, in 1990, he established Ayloul Film Productions, where he has produced television programmes on the problem of immigration. Abu-Assad made his first short, Paper House, in 1992. After several more documentaries addressing multicultural issues in Europe and the Middle East, he debuted in features with the comedy The Fourteenth Chick (Het 14e kippejte, 1998). Then he enjoyed acclaim for his second feature Ranas Wedding (Al qods fee yom akhar, 2002), in which a 17-year-old Palestinian girl has to decide upon a husband within a few hours. He received further accolades for his drama Paradise Now (2004), honoured with the Blue Angel Award for Best European Film and the Amnesty International Award at the Berlin IFF in 2005. The Karlovy Vary IFF 2003 screened his long documentary Ford Transit (2002).