Divine Intervention (film)

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Divine Intervention

Directed by	Elia Suleiman
Produced by	Humbert Balsan, Elia Suleiman
Written by	Elia Suleiman
Starring	Elia Suleiman, Manal Khader
Distributed by	Avatar Films (USA)
Release date(s)	May 19, 2002
Running time	92 minutes
Language	Arabic, Hebrew
IMDb profile

Divine Intervention (يد إلهية) is a 2002 film by the Israeli Palestinian director Elie Suleiman, which may be described as a surreal black comedy. The film consists largely of a series of brief interconnected sketches, but for the most part records a day in the life of a Palestinian living in Nazareth, whose girlfriend lives several checkpoints away in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

One lyrical section features a beautiful sunglasses-clad Palestinian woman (played by Manal Khader) whose passing by not only distracts all eyes, but whose gaze causes Israeli military checkpoint towers to crumble. The director features prominently as the film's silent, expressionless protagonist in an iconic and powerfully moving performance has been compared to the work of Buster Keaton, Jim Jarmusch and Jacques Tati [1] [2].

Despite being nominated for the "Palme d'Or" award at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, the film's consideration as candidate for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards was an occasion for considerable controversy. In late 2002, producer Humbert Balsan authorized the US distributor of the film to release a statement which stated that Balsan had asked the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences if the film could run for best foreign language picture. According to Balsan, the answer was no, because "Palestine is not a state we recognize in our rules." However, spokesperson John Pavlik states that the Academy had never made a decision on that issue because Suleiman had never submitted his film. Critics like The Electronic Intifada and others, claim that the Academy did make a decision, and that it was based on political considerations.^[3]

The film was considered for an Oscar the following year; Pavlik told Variety "The committee decided to treat Palestine as an exception in the same way we treat Hong Kong as an exception. It's always the goal of the foreign-language film award executive committee to be as inclusive as possible." [4]

[edit] Notes

↑ Doherty, Benjamin J. Abunimah, Ali. (2002). "Oscars' double standard turns Palestinian film into refugee". The Electronic Intifada. December 10. Last accessed: December 19, 2005.