ABOUT THE FILM

Based on a novel by Jean-Luc Outers, one of Belgium's leading novelists, the film is a satire of modern bureaucratic man and his contradictions, with a mixture of surrealism and Kafkaesque comedy. Martin is a sort of post-Romantic anti-hero who feels trapped by the strange and abstract demands of a modern bureaucracy. At the same time, he is unable to muster either the will or the resources revolt against his fate and superiors – on the contrary, he seems to perpetuate and desire his fate.

DOAN | Filmmakers

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 -- 105’, French (Belgium: 1992)