Salt of this Sea

 

Award Winning Film From Palestinian Director, Annemarie Jacir

Salt of this Sea, through a modern love story, eloquently marries the Palestinian diaspora's yearning to return with the angst for escape felt by Palestinians trapped in open air prisons in their homeland.  

The present is interwoven with the past, as is traditional with all Indigenous story telling. The film opens with historic footage from the Nakba, that incredibly painful time, beginning in 1948, when Israel began the violent ethnic cleansing of Palestine.  We get a tiny glimpse at home demolitions,  as well as the bombs and the tanks that were employed.  We see Palestinian people rushing to flee in tiny boats and a last longing look back at the town of Jaffa, as the boats head out to sea.

We meet the film's main character, Soraya, a member of the Palestinian diaspora, at the first Israeli checkpoint after her plane has landed in Israel.  And at that moment, our education in the discriminatory treatment of all Palestinians begins.  As Soraya moves through the landscape of Israel and the occupied territories, our understanding deepens. We are confronted with separation walls, checkpoints, razor wire, and fully armed military police.

The landscape is breath taking.  The resilience and angst, the warm hearted hospitality and the heart breaking tragedy are shared in an illuminating light.  As we watch, we begin to understand that injustice breeds desperation and that desperate people do desperate things.

This film is highly recommended to all who stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.  It weaves many of the separate news stories and narratives into a living whole.  We begin to glimpse what life is like, both in the hearts of the diaspora and for those living behind the separation walls. 

Salt of this Sea is widely available, request it from your local library or wherever you normally rent movies.  You can also stay in touch on their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SaltofthisSea.  It is still making the film festival rounds and they announce screenings from time to time. 

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More on Israel's discriminatory practices can be found here:
http://boycott4peace.blogspot.com/2014/11/freedom-of-religion.html

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Check out our other recommended DVDs:
http://boycott4peace.blogspot.com/search/label/DVD

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