RANA’S WEDDING

RANA'S WEDDING, subtitled “Jerusalem, Another Day,” provides a matter-of-fact look at the difficulties of contemporary life in the bitterly divided capital city for ordinary Arab citizens. Rana (Clara Khoury), a young, headstrong Palestinian woman living in East Jerusalem, wakes early one morning determined to create her own destiny. Her wealthy father is moving to Cairo that evening, and she is supposed to go with him unless she marries first. Her father has given her a list of eligible suitors – lawyers, doctors and engineers she has never met, but Rana is in love with Khalil (Khalifa Natour), a theater director. She needs to find him and make the necessary arrangements before her father heads to the airport. As strong-willed Rana seeks to expedite her marriage, Israeli patrols, security checks, nightmarish roadblocks, home demolitions and angry demonstrations stall her trip to Ramallah, where Khalil has spent the night in the theater. When he finally agrees to marry her, they zip around in a tiny yellow car procuring documents, an official to perform the ceremony and a wedding dress, all against the backdrop of the Intifada. When the abnormality of barriers and occupation becomes an everyday reality, love and marriage turns into fiction. Though shot from the Palestinian point of view, the film has a balanced tone, taking a broad and distanced view of the current conflict. (In Arabic with English subtitles)