“Stories of Palestine” includes award-winning works by critically acclaimed Palestinian filmmakers, including directors such as Elia Suleiman, Annemarie Jacir and Basil Khalil. Each work tells its own story, showing different aspects of Palestinian life, thereby promoting the image of this Middle Eastern country to the world.
"There are movies that make you laugh, there are movies that make you cry"
“Diversifying our content is part of our effort to make Netflix the home of Arab cinema, a place where anyone in the world can access great Arab stories,” said Nuha El Tayeb, Netflix’s Director of Content Acquisitions for Turkey, the Middle East and North America.
“These stories portray Arabia clearly and authentically, so the themes that relate to its people will resonate with audiences around the world. This is the true beauty of visual storytelling,” said Nuha El Tayeb, a Palestinian state in the Arab League and part of the Arab culture as a whole.
A scene from the movie “Ave Maria” directed by Basil Khalil.
Ameen Nayfeh, a young Palestinian director, said he was proud to have portrayed his own struggle to cross an Israeli military checkpoint to visit his dying grandfather. He did not expect his short film “The Crossing” to attract a large audience when Netflix launched its Palestinian film collection.
“That's why we made the film, we wanted our story to be known, we wanted people to know,” Nayfeh said in an interview with Reuters.
Among the films shown in the collection are some outstanding short films such as “Ave Maria” by Basil Khalil which was nominated for an Oscar in 2015, “Salt of this Sea” by Annemarie Jacir and “Divine Intervention” by Elia Suleiman which won the Award at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.
“Salt of this Sea” tells the story of 28-year-old Soraya, an American of Palestinian descent, on her journey back to Palestine to reunite with her grandfather.
“Divine Intervention” is a satirical narrative film about Palestinian lovers separated by an Israeli checkpoint.
“Ave Maria” is a humorous short film about five Palestinian nuns in the West Bank whose quiet and peaceful lives are disrupted after an Israeli settler family drives a car into the wall of their convent.
