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The Reports on Sarah and Saleem The Reports on Sarah and Saleem

Muayad Alayan / Palestine, Mexico, Netherlands, Germany / 2018 / 127 min / Arabic

Beginning as a psychosocial drama, the story about an extramarital affair between a Palestinian man and an Israeli woman takes on a dangerous political dimension when their amorous activity is caught on video surveillance camera.

festivals, awards Rotterdam 2018 (Special Mention, Audience Award), Seattle 2018 (Grand Jury Prize)

Furtive lovemaking in the back of a van: this is what Sarah and Saleem’s relationship consists of. A few times a week, when Sarah has closed her café and Saleem is done with his delivery rounds. Being married, they are risking their domestic happiness. In Jerusalem, a city divided and fraught with tension, an illicit relationship between a Jewish woman and a Palestinian man goes way beyond the private. Their adulterous affair becomes a spy sensation, which is given an extra political dimension by the fact that Sarah’s husband is a high-ranking officer in the Israeli army.

“It is not a fairy tale in terms of having fairies and magic. It is a fairy tale in terms of its theme, characters and feel or style. The film tries to depict the collective Palestinian experience under occupation with characters representing all parties involved: Israeli agents, Palestinian militias, corrupt officials, foreign diplomats and everyday impoverished people through a series of events and coincidences that, individually, could very well happen in Palestine but collectively give a fairy-tale feeling representing the overall situation in the country while following the central conflict or problem of the story." (Muayad & Rami Alayan)

Muayad Alayan
A Palestinian born in Kuwait in 1985, Alayan studied in San Francisco before returning to Bethlehem to make films about the realities of life for young Palestinians. His first short film, Why Sabreen?, premiered at the International Short Film Festival in Clermont-Ferrand and screened at over 60 international festivals. His debut feature, Love, Theft and Other Entanglements, premiered at the Berlin IFF.

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