Genre
Synopsis
The sixteen-year-old girl escapes from school without her parents’ knowledge, planning to meet her boyfriend with the help of her friends. He picks her up in his car, and they embark on a journey across cities and villages in Palestine, navigating backroads and prohibited routes to enter the territories of 1948 to visit her father’s village in Beit Nuba, near Jerusalem. They are surprised on the mountain slope in the village, just before exchanging a kiss, by a large number of soldiers, patrols, bomb disposal units, and guard dogs. The street under the mountain fills with soldiers yelling hysterically, instructing them to put their hands above their heads and descend from the hill. The situation leads them to the police station in Givat Ze’ev, one of the largest settlements in the West Bank. We follow the girl’s journey of escaping the settlement by assuming the identity of an Israeli girl in an attempt to navigate through the minefield and horrors within the settlement.
What will happen to the girl before her family discovers what happened, and will she be able to escape from the settlement?
Bio
Samaher Alqadi is an emerging voice in Arabic documentary filmmaking. Her films focus on the evolving status of women and dissident artists in the Middle East. Raised in Jalazon refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, Samaher studied cinema directing at the High Cinema Institute, Egypt. She Directed and Produced the documentary “Mohammed Bakri” in 2008 about the Palestinian actor and director of the same name who made the controversial film “Jenin Jenin”. Samaher’s film “Gamalaat” is a short documentary portrait of the legendary Shaabi singer and symbol of matriarchal Egypt Gamalaat Shiha. Her short doc, “Raja3’een” (2012) is a snap-shot of Syrian refugees in France who continue their political struggle in the streets and café’s of Paris.
