The Palestine Poster Project Archives

Ticket to Jerusalem

Directed by Rashid Masharawi

Netherlands/Palestine/France 2002, 35mm, color, 85 min.

With Ghassan Abbas, Areen Omary

Arabic with English subtitles

Described by Masharawi as a "fiction documentary," Ticket to Jerusalem offers a privileged view into everyday life in the West Bank though the story of Jaber and Sanah, a Palestinian couple living in a refugee camp near Ramallah. Their existence is a daily negotiation of checkpoints, IDs, and soldiers as Sanah works in the emergency service of the Red Crescent Society and Jaber screens cartoons for children in the refugee camps. Jaber encounters a schoolteacher who enthusiastically envisions an open-air movie screening in the old city of Jerusalem. As he faces the mounting risks of crossing into Jerusalem, his obsession with the project grows, as do the suspicions of his wife. Masharawi, who himself screened films in the refugee camps, creates a fable of lives that are as intricate and complex as the journey though the labyrinthine war zone in which they live.

Source: Harvard Film Archive

http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2002novdec/documenta.html