Let not the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just — that is nearer to righteousness.
~Sura Al-Ma'idah 5:8
The Middle East Film Festival
I got asked a simple question: 'Are there any Romeo & Juliet stories in Israeli and Palestinian/Arab cinema?' It's a question that reveals what we want cinema to give us - hope, reconciliation, the possibility that love can transcend politics. The answer, unfortunately, is more complicated and sadder than one might hope.
Given the title of the film, it's a funny (happy or otherwise, not sure!) coincidence, that I'm writing this post on November 5th 2025, a date familiar enough to readers in the United Kingdom. Many Britons now seem to have no idea any more of the history, mind, and it's a date which needs a quick search on Wikipedia for most of those not native to these islands. There was zero intention of the two things would overlap. The only reason for writing now is a conversation about this film which took place only two days ago.
Ziad Doueiri's 1998 film 'West Beirut' was quite the epiphany for me. Having for many years mentally pictured Beirut as a giant urban mantrap, with perfectly good reason given all the news that we were fed about the place throughout the 1980s, it was virtually impossible to visualise the lives of ordinary Lebanese people in the midst of the madness that engulfed them for fifteen years.
Following the very strict rule of balancing as evenly as possible between the Arab and Israeli perspectives, those three films will be complemented by three Israeli films which present three stages of Israel's invasion of and eventual long-protracted withdrawal from Lebanon.
I need to remind myself that I'm not trying to write my PhD thesis here. These are just emotional reactions to films that react to and reflect on anything that ails the Middle East (occasionally with some humour, thankfully). Let us begin with a love story from the place where the pain is currently most strongly felt (and of course *has been felt* for a long time
How did this come about? Approximately two months after October 7th I had a few conversations with friends on both the Jewish and Arab(-sympathising) sides about films relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict...