Synopsis

When Israeli soldiers interrupt her commute home, a Palestinian doctor is forced down a desolate road and her future is thrown into disarray.

This film screens as part of Shorts Program 1: After Dark.

Synopsis

Unfulfilled dreams, dark obsessions, and illicit desires take center stage in this program that transports viewers into the bold and blood-curdling world of genre film. From ventriloquist dummies to unrequited love, these shorts expose our darkest fears… and create new ones.

Blue Violet is a camcorder video compilation for Violet’s birthday that captures just how far Blue will go to prove her devotion to her beloved. While driving home alone on a deserted West Bank road, a Palestinian woman’s flat tire forces her to accept the help of a stranger with unknown intentions in Coyotes. Dummy! takes place in an alternate universe populated by ventriloquist dummies, where a human woman dreams of following in her domineering mother’s footsteps as a cabaret singer. In Earworm, an office worker seeks medical attention after being driven to madness by the notorious earworm “Cotton Eye Joe.” Between a tough-as-nails instructor, apathetic classmates more interested in partying than practicing medicine, and a lack of cadavers to help him hone his skills, Wolfe feels he has no choice but to take his dream of becoming an anesthesiologist into his own hands in Pinpoint. Following her partner’s death, a pregnant woman with a mysterious wound along her spine is visited by an old lover who wants to help her heal in Hotel Acropole.

Synopsis

On January 29, 2024, Red Crescent volunteers in Gaza field a call from a family trapped inside a car that is under Israeli military fire. Moments later, six-year-old Hind Rajab remains alone on the line, terrified and pleading for rescue. As the emergency volunteers keep her talking, dispatchers must determine if they will be able to send a rescue team across the embattled terrain to save her life.

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania (Four Daughters) recreates the unimaginably fraught situation in vivid detail for her groundbreaking feature The Voice of Hind Rajab, merging documentary and feature filmmaking techniques to tell the heartbreaking story of the emergency workers who tried to mount a rescue effort to save the girl’s life. Brilliantly marrying real-life recordings and scripted re-enactments pulled from transcripts and first-hand accounts—and casting actors who closely resemble the actual dispatchers—Ben Hania creates an unsettling verisimilitude.

Tense, urgent, and imminently compelling, The Voice of Hind Rajab embeds with the emergency workers as they attempt to comfort Hind, slowly realizing the impossible position they face. The film is a memorial to the courage of those first responders and a tribute to the life of a little girl whose name will not be forgotten.

Synopsis

Driven to document the war in Gaza, filmmaker and Festival alum Sepideh Farsi (2014’s Red Rose) tries to enter the region. Blocked at the border, Farsi strikes up a relationship via cellphone with a bright-eyed young Palestinian photographer and poet named Fatma Hassona, who is holed up in her bombed-out neighborhood. Through a series of intimate video conversations, by turns lighthearted and heartbreaking, Sepideh and Fatma grow closer despite the layers of screens between them, even as the conditions around Fatma become increasingly dire.

Mirroring in its construction the distance between Gaza and the rest of the world, this cleverly conceived Cannes Film Festival stunner also subtly explores potent contrasts between the two women: the Iranian filmmaker’s world travels and her long life in exile vs. Fatma’s isolation, entrapment, and dreams of escape. As weeks turn to months, the film chronicles their deepening relationship, becoming a compassionate portrait of a life under siege that celebrates the remarkable fortitude of the Palestinian people.

Synopsis

Witty, playful, and profoundly moving, The President’s Cake is a story of struggle and survival under Saddam Hussein’s sanctioned Iraq. Though the country is suffering massive food shortages, a decree is sent across the nation: the President requires a cake from every school to celebrate his birthday. Despite desperately trying not to be chosen, unlucky nine-year-old Lamia is selected for baking duty, even though she’s too poor to afford the ingredients.

Setting out on a daylong odyssey from her provincial home to a nearby town with her beloved rooster Hindi in tow, Lamia is forced to use her imagination and get creative as she attempts to whip up the obligatory confection. With a keen eye for period detail and a winning performance from newcomer Baneen Ahmed Nayyef as Lamia, The President’s Cake offers an astonishing child’s-eye view of the hardships of living in 1990s Iraq.