Salt of This Sea

Annemarie Jacir’s award-winning debut features a woman, born in Brooklyn, New York City into a working-class family of Palestinian refugees, who must confront her family’s past and Palestine’s political present. The film introduces themes and perspectives that return in Wajib: the conflict with Israel, the stranger returning home, and the attention to the seemingly insignificant details of routines.

Soraya learns that savings belonging to her grandfather were frozen in a bank account in Jaffa when he was forced in exile in 1948. Determined to claim the money, she travels to the West Bank, only to encounter the harsh realities that stand between her and her goal: walls, fences, check points, and not least the distrust that poisons the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians. She befriends two Palestinian men, Emad and Marwan, who are as hell-bent on leaving as she herself is on staying. Together, they decide to take the law into their own hands to correct the wrongdoings of the past.

The confiscation of Palestinian assets is a well-known but rather abstract phenomenon made tangible in Salt of This Sea. It is an intense and oftentimes very beautiful film, featuring an impressive performance by Suheir Hammad as Soraya. With her body and facial expressions, she embodies sixty years of Palestinian frustration, anger, and pride. Cato Fossum

Annemarie Jacir (b. 1974) is born in Betlehem, raised in Saudi Arabia and educated in New York. She is one of the leading Palestinian directors, and a pioneer female filmmaker in the Arab world. Having directed films since 1998, Jacir gained international recognition when Salt of This Sea (2008) was nominated for the Caméra d’Or award at the Cannes film festival. Jacir runs the production company Philistine Films together with Ossama Bawardi.