Annemarie Jacir - Salt of This Sea

This week the full length feature film Salt of This Sea (Milh Hadha al-Bahr) written and directed by Annemarie Jacir is being screened in Australia at the Melbourne Film Festival on Wednesday the 30th of July and Sunday the 3rd of August.

In early spring, the film was selected for the Un Certain Regard category at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival amid controversy. On her way from Jordan to the West Bank for the World Premiere of her film for the cast and crew set to be held at the Amari Refugee Camp in Ramallah, Ms. Jacir was questioned for several hours only to be denied entry and escorted to a bus back to Jordan. The film is set to Premiere at Amari Refugee Camp August 21st, however the director is still refused entry to Palestine by the Israeli Ministry of Interior.

Soraya(Suheir Hammad), born in Brooklyn in a working class community of Palestinian refugees, discovers that her grandfather’s savings were frozen in a bank account in Jaffa when he was exiled in 1948. Stubborn, passionate and determined to reclaim what is hers, she fulfills her life-long dream of “returning” to Palestine. Slowly she is taken apart by the reality around her and, as she is forced to confront her own anger, she realizes the walls in Palestine are not always seen. She meets Emad(Saleh Bakri), a young Palestinian whose ambition, contrary to hers, is to leave forever. Tired of the constraints that dictate their lives, they know in order to be free, they must take things into their own hands, even if it’s illegal.
The film also stars Riyad Ideis as Marwan.



Until the film is released in theaters, for now here is the film trailer...