Palestinian Auteurs Series: “Divine Intervention” by Elia Suleiman




Thursday, 21 January 2016
12:30 – 2:00 p.m. EST*
The Jerusalem Fund


*Screening begins promptly at 12:30. No Lunch is served. RSVP is REQUESTED.

Considered the second installment in Elia Suleiman’s triology (starting with Chronicle of a Disappearance and ending with The Time that Remains), Divine Intervention has been variously described by critics who were not used to writing about Palestinian cinema as a Jaques Tati-like or Buster Keaton-esque “black comedy” about the existential absurdity Palestinians endure living in Israel and under the occupation.

Join us as we revisit this film, and its sequence of vignettes that provide an ironically authentic tableau of life for young and old living in this limbo, and which culminates in an unforgettable genre-bending fantasy sequence:

 
“….a beautiful young Palestinian woman defies Israeli soldiers and struts through a check-point as if it were the catwalk of a fashion show; Santa Claus is chased up the sun- drenched hills of Nazareth by a gang of knife-wielding school kids; Israeli police use a blindfolded prisoner to provide directions to tourists in Jerusalem; and a female ninja descends from the sky, holding the map of ‘Palestine’ as her battle shield.”
 
2002. 90 minutes.
 
To read an interview with Elia Sulieman about Divine Intervention, click here.
 
To read a recent article about Elia Sulieman, click here.