ABOUT THE FILM

A mixture of realism and allegory set against the backdrop of the Palestinian uprising in Gaza. Youssef, a 12 year-old Palestinian boy, tries to win the love of Aida, a Gypsy girl. Aida offers her heart, but on the condition that he finds her grandmother’s lost jewels. Youssef is so smitten with Aida that he embarks on a mystical pursuit, which leads him to a wise old man, a mysterious scroll, death and resurrection.

DOAN | Filmmakers

Michel Khleifi

Michel Khleifi was born in Nazareth in 1950. In 1970 he traveled to Belgium where he studied television and theatre directing. Considered the founder of modern Palestinian cinema, Khleifi produced and directed several full-length features and documentaries for international release and broadcast. His previous documentary feature, Fertile Memory (1980), was the first Palestinian film to be shown at the Cannes FF and was a groundbreaking work, both on a political and aesthetic level, treating the struggle for women's freedom and emancipation, across the generations and under occupation, in a haunting lyrical style that became all his own.

Michel Khleifi -- Fiction, 107’ (Belgium/Palestine: 1995)