In addition to the streaming of his films, there will also be a live talk with the director on May 30 at Arab Film and Media Institute.
The Arab American National Museum, Arab Film and Media Institute, ArteEast and Doha Film Institute will present a retrospective of Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman, one of the prominent figures in Palestinian cinema.
All four feature films that the director wrote, directed and starred in, will stream online for free from May 21 to 30.
Throughout his career, Suleiman directed four feature films, all with a heavy focus on Palestine and Palestinian identity. His first film Chronicle of a Disappearance, which was released in 1996 to international critical acclaim, stars Suleiman alongside his relatives and others as he documents his journey returning to the West Bank after 12 years of absence. Without a concrete storyline or character arcs, the film was created to portray the unsettling feeling of Palestinian statelessness.
His second feature film, Divine Intervention, won the Jury Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and the International Critics Prize by the International Federation of Film Critics at the festival.
The Time That Remains, the director’s third film, was also selected at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and won the Black Pearl Award at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival in 2009.
His fourth and latest film, It Must Be Heaven, was selected at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and was awarded the Jury Special Mention award at the festival where it received a six-minute standing ovation. The satire film follows the story of a Palestinian man (Suleiman playing himself), who leaves Palestine in search of a better life only to find out that the same problems he faces are everywhere he goes.
In addition to the streaming of his films, there will also be a live talk with the director on May 30 at Arab Film and Media Institute.
