Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.
~Rumi
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.
This really happened. The most grotesque thing you could imagine (until the next thing, at least). This is indeed the TRUTH that Donald Trump posted this morning. He wasn't hacked, and it wasn't a hoax. In what more auspicious possible circumstance could I return to write the first post on this blog since I left things off nearly a year ago?
A introductory post about some of the actors and directors who will come into focus when I get to the heart of this difficult and often horrifying matter. Inevitably, some of these films ,and some of what I write will quickly feel outdated as events become ever more grim.
Purim falls on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Adar. It fell in late February in the year that I stayed in Jerusalem. There was a big fancy dress party, and then the day after was seemingly a fairly quiet one until my friend from down the corridor came to ask me if I'd heard the news about what had happened in Hebron.
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