Attente

ADDITIONAL PRODUCTION INFORMATION

Cinematographer Besse, Jacques

Film Editor Witta, Jacques

Music Barber, Elia

Music El Khoury, Ralph

Producer Farsi, Setareh

Producer Masharawi, Rashid

Screenwriter Kronop, Oscar

Screenwriter Masharawi, Rashid

Sound Auzet, Bruno

Production Company CPC

Production Company Silkroad Production

Principal Cast Baroud, Youssef

Principal Cast Massad, Mahmoud

Principal Cast Omari, Areen

DESCRIPTION

TIFF NOTE

The surreal nature of Palestinian life has been the subject of several terrific films lately. One of the finest to emerge was Rashid Masharawi's 2002 feature Ticket to Jerusalem, whose blackly comic story concerns a refugee camp projectionist obsessed with staging an open-air screening in East Jerusalem. It perfectly evoked the Kafkaesque obstacles involved in any attempt at normalcy in that beleaguered region. It also spoke to the intrinsic pathos of diasporic cinema: a unifying force for a far-flung people, it is nonetheless incapable of satisfying the burdens of hope and self-definition placed upon it. Attente works through many of the same ideas but has a sadder, darker tone, perhaps reflecting the filmmaker's increasing skepticism about peaceful, progressive change in the Middle East. It also questions the very process of making fictional cinema, blurring the line between documenting the plight of his people and the narrative obligations of his film. On the other hand, it is often quite funny. Masharawi's central conceit is that the inherent condition of Palestinian life boils down to waiting - at checkpoints, for news of relatives and friends, for money, for peace or for justice. He fleshes this idea out through a deceptively simple storyline. Ahmad, a famed Palestinian stage director, is persuaded by the eccentric head of the National Palestinian Theatre to help find the finest actors for their formidable new cast. He sets out to the refugee camps of Jordan, Syria and Lebanon to begin auditions immediately. Ahmad pulls in a local woman television personality and an electronics repairman-cum -cameraman to help him, but when they arrive in Jordan they are confronted by hundreds of people seeking only to send messages to friends and relatives - who have scant interest in performing on stage. Frustrated, Ahmad decrees that he will only film potential actors - and only those quietly engaged in the act of waiting. The resulting auditions are often funny, unusually charming and very revealing about the challenges of the Palestinian experience. In the end, even Ahmad and his team are left waiting: a bombing in Israel has sealed the border, completing a bitterly ironic circle for his characters and the filmmaker himself.

FESTIVAL PROGRAMMING HISTORY

TIFF CINEMATHEQUE PROGRAMMING HISTORY

TIFF YEAR-ROUND PROGRAMMING HISTORY

SUBJECTS

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