The film festival will run from January 25 to February 5, 2023, in the Netherlands.
Palestinian filmmaker Muayad Alayan’s third feature A House in Jerusalem is set to hold its world premiere at the 2023 International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Limelight section.
Directed by Muayad Alayan and co-written alongside Rami Alayan, A House in Jerusalem will be distributed in the Arab world by MAD Solutions, continuing their collaboration on his previous two features The Reports on Sarah and Saleem (2018) and Love, Theft, and Other Entanglements (2015).
Starring Johnny Harris, Makran Khoury, Souad Feres, Miley Locke, and Sheherazade Makhoul Farrell, A House in Jerusalem was the only Arab project selected for the 36th edition of the IFFR Pro’s Production market.
The film was co-produced by PalCine Productions in Palestine, Wellington Films in the UK, Red Balloon Films in Germany (their second ongoing project with MAD Solutions alongside Ameer Fakher Eldin’s Yunan) Metafora Production in Qatar, and Key Film.
In the hope of fulfilling their life-long desire of living in the Holy Land, a Jewish American family move to Jerusalem, where they buy a house that was once the property of Palestinians. Shortly after they settle in, they discover the grave of a young Palestinian girl in their new garden, which dates to the 1940s. Their hopes for a utopian life begin to crumble as seven-year-old Rebecca finds it hard to adapt to her new home, and is increasingly haunted by the ghost of the dead girl.
Set to run from January 25 to February 5 in the Netherlands, the 2023 IFFR marks the festival’s in-person return following two consecutive years online.
Muayad Alayan is a film director, cinematographer and producer based in Palestine. His directorial debut Love, Theft and Other Entanglements (2015), which he also produced, had its premiere in the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival. It was nominated for the First Feature Award and has since been distributed in more than 20 territories. His first short film premiered at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in 2009 and went on to screen at more than 60 festivals. He also co-directed and produced the documentary Sacred Stones, which won the Al-Jazeera Channel Award in 2012.
