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Soon We Will All Be History Here
Suleiman, a Gaza man, rescues a bird and comes to believe it’s the reincarnation of his sister.
A funeral in Gaza. Suleiman – a tough and quiet man – buries his sister. He lives alone on a farm in a military zone where the Israeli army regularly invades, raids houses, and demolishes structures. Everyone here is always rebuilding. When Suleiman rescues a young peregrine falcon that falls on his land, small clues in the bird’s behaviour lead him to believe it is the reincarnation of his sister. Hisham, a young Palestinian militant, becomes obsessed with owning the bird, but Suleiman insists that he will free the animal when it is healed. Hisham takes his revenge by raising suspicions about Suleiman, suspicions that increase when an ornithologist arrives to observe migrating birds from Suleiman’s land. The militants fear she might be a spy. Suleiman tries to smuggle the bird to the city to keep it safe, but Hisham discovers it and, in an explosion of rage and jealousy, burns Suleiman’s van with the bird inside. A reflection on resilience and joy in times of grief.
On my 40th birthday, my sister and her daughters took me to a wildlife park where I watched, in awe, a Peregrine Falcon dive into the stadium from over a kilometre above us. At that moment, this story was born. The film reflects the power of small, intimate moments to confront politics and transcend death. It references the occupation of Palestine – the continuous cycle of attacks, rebuilding, resistance, internal conflicts, and whatever comes next. Times like these require new forms of cinema, and I want to develop a unique Arab cinematic vocabulary inspired by Arabic folktales and classical Arabic music. With a patient camera, scenes will unfold delicately, allowing the audience to be absorbed in every frame; to consider their lives in relation to Suleiman’s. This is a cinema of uncertainty, pandemics, revolutions, extremism, and the perpetual wars of colonialism and liberation. It is, ultimately, the cinema of my perspective: my fears and dreams.
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