Filmmaker Elia Suleiman travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to his homeland of Palestine.
Social & External
The people behind it
Elia Suleiman
E.S.
Ali Suliman
Mad Man
Gael García Bernal
Stephen McHattie
Tarot Reader
Kwasi Songui
New York Taxi Driver
Grégoire Colin
Man in the Metro
Holden Wong
Policeman 6
Alain Dahan
Immigration Officer
Vincent Maraval
Producer in Paris
Sébastien Beaulac
Policeman #3
Mourning her mother’s death and struggling to adjust to her new life in Israel, a young girl bonds with the lonely spirit of a Palestinian child.
On his wedding anniversary, Yusef and his young daughter set out in the West Bank to buy his wife a gift. Between soldiers, segregated roads and checkpoints, how easy would it be to go shopping?
A little girl wanders through a seemingly peaceful land, turning it into her playground. Almost everything she encounters becomes a source of play and wonder, as if beauty were everywhere. But behind these images lies a different reality. Driven by authentic testimonies of Palestinian children confronted with war, the film challenges the way we see: what remains of beauty when everything seems destroyed? Between fiction and testimony, this short film explores the strength and beauty of innocence in the face of the world's atrocity.
Eleven-year-old Wardi’s great-grandfather leaves behind a will suggesting looking to the past to find the future. Searching the house, Wardi finds out about her Palestinian homeland from family memories.
An examination of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 through to the present day. A semi-biographic film, in four chapters, about a family spanning from 1948 until recent times. Combined with intimate memories of each member, the film attempts to portray the daily life of those Palestinians who remained in their land and were labelled "Israeli-Arabs," living as a minority in their own homeland.
From the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Laila sets out to cross the border into Syria to attend her father’s funeral. At one of the world’s most tightly controlled frontiers, grief collides with a system that traps her and her family in an endless state of waiting.
A Palestinian seeks Israeli permission to waive curfew to give his son a fine wedding. The military governor's condition is that he and his officers attend. The groom berates his father for agreeing. Women ritually prepare the bride; men prepare the groom. Guests gather. The Arab youths plot violence. One Israeli officer swoons in the heat and Arab women take her into the cool house. A thoroughbred gets loose and runs to a mined field; soldiers and Arabs must cooperate to rescue it. As darkness falls, tensions between army and villagers rise, and the groom's wedding-night anger and impotence threaten family dignity and honor. Can cool heads prevail?
During the 1990 World Cup, two young Palestinian boys are on a quest for “Maradona’s legs”; the last missing sticker that they need in order to complete their world cup album and win a free Atari.
Filmed at the Théâtre de la Main d'Or on October 22, 2010. Dieudonné returns with "Mahmoud", in what can be described as "a contemporary artistic testimony with a strong humorous content." He tells us about the incredible events that led him to meet the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He takes us back in time and transports us to the 16th century on a plantation in Martinique to discuss the courteous relationships between masters and their slaves. He also talks about the all-powerful and revered field of medicine... only to mock it, of course. And it feels good!
Palestine, under the rule of Rome. Salome, daughter of Herodias and both niece and stepdaughter of King Herod, becomes infatuated with the prophet John the Baptist, who publicly denounces the depravity of the royal family and proclaims the arrival of a new messiah. (Film presumed lost.)
The story is set in Palestine in 1947, during the British mandate period. The Zionists are fighting for the establishment of a Jewish state, and four comrades in arms pressure the young Elisha to overcome his moral qualms and fully commit to the armed struggle.
Mustafa and his wife Salwa come from two Palestinian villages that are only 200 meters apart, but separated by the wall. Their unusual living situation is starting to affect their otherwise happy marriage, but the couple does what they can to make it work. Every night, Mustafa flashes a light from his balcony to wish his children on the other side a goodnight, and they signal him back. One day Mustafa gets a call that every parent dreads: his son has been in an accident. He rushes to the checkpoint where he must agonisingly wait in line only to find out there is a problem with his fingerprints and is denied entry. Desperate, Mustafa resorts to hiring a smuggler to bring him across. His once 200-meter journey becomes a 200-kilometer odyssey joined by other travellers determined to cross.
After fifteen years of imprisonment, Ziad struggles to adjust to modern Palestinian life as the hero everyone hails him to be. Unable to distinguish reality from hallucination he unravels and forces himself to go back to where it all began.
The story of the Russian-born, Wisconsin-raised woman who rose to become Israel's prime minister in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Yousry Nasrallah's powerful adaptation of Lebanese writer Elias Khoury's epic novel of fifty years of Palestinian dispossession, exile, and resistance. The film follows the flight of Younes, his wife Nahila, and those around them, from their village in northern Palestine to a refugee camp in Lebanon. Some vow to continue the struggle, most simply struggle to survive. Unsparingly detailing the impact of the nakba (disaster) on Palestinian life and society and the refugees' often-contentious relationship with their reluctant Lebanese hosts, Gate of the Sun spans generations, mixing personal stories with historical events.
Familiar Phantoms is an experimental documentary short film about memory, history and trauma.
A visual interpretation of the poem "the girl / the scream" by Mahmud Darwish.
Built from the debris of a major invasion, the Horse of Jenin sculpture became a constant presence in Alaa’s life growing up in Occupied Palestine. It stood proudly in the center of the city for twenty years, symbolizing hope and resistance. Then, on October 29, 2023, an Israeli bulldozer entered the city, ripping the sculpture from its place — and from its people. Now, Alaa is left wondering… What happened to the horse? Fresh from an acclaimed run at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and combining storytelling, mask, and stand-up comedy, The Horse of Jenin is constructed from the fragments of Palestinian actor and comedian Alaa Shehada’s own memories and stands as an ode to the power of imagination and the resilience it brings.
The film shows Solly who is Jewish and a retired music teacher who meets Salim, a Palestinian journalist, and becomes his friend. They spend time together discussing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
American-born teen, Rima the Lost One, unites with her great-grandmother, also named Rima, on a time-travel journey to 1930s Palestine. After clashing with her modern-ish Mom on vacation, Rima the Lost One finds herself warped through a portal that takes her to the present of her ancestors. Rima the Lost One must navigate her ancestral homeland, a place she’s never known. She desperately looks for a way home, aka the present, the place she originally desired to escape from.
From the Atlantic to the Black Sea, Mathias and Philippe, two old friends, embark on a bicycle journey that Mathias’s son made before his tragic death. The two men ride through the ordeals with tenderness, humor and emotion.
After leaving France in search of a better life in America, a television producer returns with a group of burlesque dancers to take the Paris club scene by storm.
Improbable encounters bring tenderness, laughter and compassion to a world of urban alienation.
When 43-year-old hairdresser Suze Trappet finds out that she's seriously ill, she decides to go looking for a child she was forced to abandon when she was only 15. On her madcap bureaucratic quest she crosses paths with JB, a 50-year-old man in the middle of a burnout, and Mr. Blin, a blind archivist prone to overenthusiasm. The unlikely trio set off on a hilarious and poignant helterskelter journey across the city in search of Suze's long-lost child.
Thomas, a blasé young man, spends his nights in clubs and his days in bed. Until his father, Dr. Reinhard, fed up with his son’s escapades, cuts him off completely and forces him to take care of one of his young patients. Mar- cus, 12, was born with a serious congenital disorder. He lives with his mother in the poor suburbs of Paris and spends his days either at the hospital or in a center for sick children. This encounter will disrupt their lives and change them both, profoundly and forever.
Two young girls meet, Reinette from the countryside and Mirabelle from Paris, and decide to take a flat together in Paris where they attend University. Four successive stories about their daily lives illustrate the very different views, characters and relation to the world of these two friends.
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
Cathy is a sous-chef wanting to open a restaurant. With financial difficulties, Cathy accepts a job at a shelter for young migrants. At first she hates the job then her passion for cuisine starts to change children's lives.
Jon Katz is close to burnout. He's a writer with writer's block; his wife has left for her sister's because he's emotionally distant; he rarely answers his phone. A kennel sends him a border collie that's undisciplined because of abuse. Despite a series of mishaps, Jon decides to keep trying with the dog, and he rents a dilapidated farm house to give the dog room to run. A local handyman refers Jon to a woman who might be able to help him train the dog. Reluctantly, Jon gives her a try. Is the dog the problem, or the owner?
On the eve of World War II four Parisians cope with the impending invasion of their city by German forces. While the French government braces for impact, the intersected lives of a young writer, a vain movie star, a French politician and a young scientist are examined as they attempt to deal with war and evade German spies.
Frank Farrelli takes on the job as a middle man in the God-forsaken town of Karmack, USA, a community in a depression so deep that they need a middle man to professionally communicate more of the bad news.
Rachel loves her life, her students, her friends, her ex, her guitar lessons. When she falls in love with Ali, she grows close to his 4-year-old daughter, Leila. She tucks her in, looks after her, and loves her like a mother... which she isn’t. Not yet. Rachel is 40. The desire for a family of her own is growing stronger, and the clock is ticking. Is it too late?
Etienne, an often out of work but endearing actor, runs a theater workshop in a prison, where he brings together an unlikely troupe of prisoners to stage Samuel Beckett’s famous play Waiting for Godot. When he is allowed to take the colorful band of convicts on a tour outside of prison, Etienne finally has the chance to thrive.
Puppy mayhem turns the lives of newlywed Chihuahua parents Papi and Chloe upside down when their rambunctious, mischievous puppies present one challenge after another. But when their human owners end up in trouble, the tiny pups will stop at nothing to save them - because in good times and hard times, the family always sticks together. So Papi, Chloe and the puppies embark on a heroic adventure, proving once again that big heroes come in small packages.
A man takes his wife and their teenage children on a road trip down memory lane while facing divorce.
Anne Walberg is a celebrity in the world of perfume. She creates fragrances and sells her incredible talent to companies of all kinds. She lives as a diva, selfish, with a strong temper. Guillaume is her new driver and the only one who is not afraid to stand up to her. No doubt this is the reason why she does not fire him.
Benjamin is a PhD student without scholarship support. Under the pressure of his parents, and in need of money, he becomes a substitute teacher in a middle school. Without training nor experience, and facing a declining public educational system, he discovers how tough this job can be. Hopefully, his supportive and committed colleagues will lead him to take a fresh look at the profession.
A wheelchair-bound singer and her best friend embark on a roadtrip to Memphis.
In the fifties, young Alice leaves her natal Swiss mountains for the sunny and vibrant shores of Beirut. She falls madly in love with Joseph, a quirky astrophysicist intent on sending the first Lebanese national into space. Alice quickly fits in among his relatives, but after years of bliss, the civil war threatens their Garden of Eden.
As teenagers, Blandine and Magalie were inseparable. Years passed and they lost sight of each other. As their paths cross again, they decide to take the trip together that they have always dreamed of. Direction Greece, its sun, its islands but also its galleys because the two former best friends now have a very different approach to holidays... and to life!
