Latest news with #ONCEUPONATIMEINGAZA
Sydney Morning Herald
06-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
MIFF made easy: 15 films that should be on your viewing list
The Melbourne International Film Festival kicks off on August 7 with a packed program that includes everything from premiere features to documentaries and rarely seen classics. If you're struggling to decide what to see, these highlights from our resident film experts are a good place to start. ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA A film in two parts, about how life is and isn't like the movies. Part one, set in 2007, is a buddy movie about a burly, affable restaurateur (Majd Eid), his student employee (Nader Abd Alhay) and their adventures in the drug trade. Part two takes place two years on, when the student is cast in a low-budget film about a militant leader. This entertainment with serious intentions was written and directed by Arab and Tarzan Nasser, Palestinian twins based in Jordan. What has become of their homeland in the past couple of years is addressed only obliquely – but speaking of fantasy and reality, it's not for nothing an opening title card cites Donald Trump's vision of Gaza's future as the 'Riviera of the Middle East'. August 14 and 23. JW HARVEST Athina Rachel Tsangari, a leading light in the so-called 'weird wave' of Greek cinema in the 2000s, shifts focus here to a remote Scottish village during the Clearances, where cut-throat capitalism is about to overturn a social order grounded in myth, tradition and the seasons. Caleb Landry Jones, so memorable in Nitram, is the village's acceptable outsider; his childhood bond with their benign laird forever sets him apart from the other peasants, but he is a strong worker, devoted to this living land. Tsangari's interest has always been on power, bullying and submission; in this savage story, the dispossession of a community is given horns and muddy hoofs to become a new sort of folk tale, pulsating with violence. August 18 and 22. SB KONTINENTAL '25 The Romanian satirist Radu Jude (Bad Luck Banging) may be cynical about everything to do with institutions, but he seems quite fond of people, especially his overworked, morally compromised heroines such as Orsolya (Eszter Tompa), a bailiff who blames herself for the suicide of a homeless man she helped evict from a basement. While her sense of guilt is no laughing matter, her quest to come to terms with it propels her in some unexpected directions. This isn't as busy as some of Jude's other films, but there's still a lot to take in, from animatronic dinosaurs to Zen parables to sidelights on the history of Cluj, the Transylvanian city Orsolya drives around in circles as if hopelessly seeking a way out. August 9 and 13. JW BLUE MOON Loading The nighthawk world of '50s Broadway bars is evoked in Richard Linklater's chamber drama about the disintegration of one of the great musical theatre partnerships, Rodgers and Hart. Ethan Hawke may be an odd fit for lyricist Lorenz Hart, whose short stature was a torment to him, but he brings real pathos to his portrait of a one-time talent, raddled by booze, who sees his era passing in front of his eyes. Andrew Scott as Richard Rodgers, who has ditched Hart for the much slicker Oscar Hammerstein, is entirely justified but still makes your flesh crawl; Margaret Qualley is Hart's utterly inappropriate young crush. Linklater, never an obtrusive director, goes with the story's theatrical flow, pulling back the curtain on a vanished era. August 9, 16 and 24. SB WE BURY THE DEAD When a high-tech weapons test kills off the entire population of Tasmania, there's not much anyone from the mainland can do except get on with the grim task of body disposal. Except that some of the corpses are said to be coming back to life, a tantalising rumour for volunteers such as Ava (Daisy Ridley) who can't let go of the memory of her dead husband. In his 2013 film These Final Hours, Australian writer-director Zak Hilditch showed us what the end of the world might look like from the vantage point of Perth. This companion piece offers another contained vision of apocalypse, taking advantage of the versatility of the zombie genre to tell a story that is solemn, blackly funny and grisly by turns. August 13 and 15. JW THE MASTERMIND Josh O'Connor is initially unrecognisable as beardy slacker JB, an art school drop-out who regularly wanders his quiet, leafy town's art gallery with his family on weekends. Here he gets the idea for his grand gesture: getting some of his stoner friends together, putting stockings on their heads and stealing the museum's Arthur Dove collection. It is the '70s, before security cameras; the guards are always half-asleep; his dad's status as a conservative judge (Bill Camp, also terrific) should lift him beyond suspicion: what could go wrong? Everything, of course. Independent spirit Kelly Reichardt, whose low-key Americana includes reworkings of the western and the road movie, deconstructs the heist movie with typically bleak wit, skewering the likes of feckless JB in the process. August 8 and 16. SB THE ICE TOWER This eerie riff on The Snow Queen updates Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairytale to the 1970s – but as in Lucile Hadzihalilovic's other films, the rules of the real world barely apply. The heroine is a teenage runaway (Clara Pacini), who finds her way onto a film set where they're shooting an adaptation of the Andersen story, starring a diva (Marion Cotillard) who proves to be the same kind of chilly tyrant as the character she's playing. There isn't much plot: the drama is in how the two women look at each other, and in Hadzihalilovic's gift for charged, paradoxical images, such as an ice rink viewed from a distance that is made to resemble both a bare stage and a warm, glowing haven. August 16 and 23. JW SOUND OF FALLING Loading A family farm in northern Germany, seen in various eras, in various states of repair and through the eyes of four girls at different times, is the creaking heart of Mascha Schilinski's extraordinary film, the greatest discovery of this year's Cannes Film Festival. Erika amuses herself walking on crutches belonging to her uncle, who has lost his leg in the Great War; Alma is given a funereal black dress to wear to a party around 1900; Angelika lives with the strange, pinched chill of the Cold War. We slip between different eras, which echo and mirror each other, in this haunting meditation on death and the persistence of memory; meanwhile, the girls struggle against the confines of their different lives. August 20, 22 and 24. SB CLOUD Kiyoshi Kurosawa might be called the M. Night Shyamalan of Japan, although he's been telling uncanny, twisty suspense stories for a good deal longer. There's nothing openly supernatural in this tale of a young man (Masaki Suda) who embarks on a career reselling fake designer goods online, a get-rich-quick scheme that eventually brings catastrophe on virtually everyone around him. But the atmosphere is closer to a horror film than a conventional thriller, with the hero's need to control his environment spreading to the other characters like a disease. Kurosawa is something of a control freak in his own right – and his cool, deliberate style, based largely on emptied-out long shots, is ideal for picturing a world where nothing but profit counts. August 17 and 21. JW ENZO The late French director Laurent Cantet, best known for his Palme D'Or winner The Class, was obliged by his worsening cancer to hand over direction of Enzo to his co-writer, Robin Campillo. Campillo, whose own style in films such as BPM is frantic and festive, here maintains Cantet's stately seriousness in a profile of Enzo (terrific newcomer Eloy Pohu), who has defied his professional parents by taking a job as an apprentice builder. He is terrible at his job; what holds him is the hope of defining himself as a man and his secret crush on Vlad, one of two Ukrainian builders wrestling with the call of duty. Under the ferocious Mediterranean sun, Enzo's romantic yearnings rise like new sap. August 16, 20 and 23. SB CHAIN REACTIONS Marking the 50th anniversary of Tobe Hooper's horror classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Alexandre O. Philippe's documentary is an admirably serious and respectful piece of work, letting us hear at length from five high-profile fans who come at the film from different angles but agree on viewing it as some kind of masterpiece. The line-up includes Stephen King, filmmakers Takashi Miike and Karyn Kasuma, comedian Patton Oswalt – and most delightfully, the Australian horror scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, who begins her segment by discussing her childhood memories of Picnic at Hanging Rock. If shock and revulsion aren't what you crave from cinema, you might learn something here about why others feel differently, even if you need to look away from the more gruesome clips. August 9, 12 and 16. JW APRIL Against the majesty and fertility of eastern Georgia's rural landscape, a stoic obstetrician races between patients, trying to deliver babies safely by day and, after hours, giving kitchen abortions to women and girls already overburdened by poverty and patriarchy. First-trimester abortion is legal, but effectively proscribed in a country haunted by priests and monsters. Everyone knows that Nina is an abortionist; many know that she picks up men on the road, the only kind of intimacy that fits into her work schedule. When she delivers a stillborn baby, the authorities seize the opportunity to rid themselves of this doctor for whom the old ways are not good enough. Dea Kulumbegashvili's film is shattering, but also profoundly human. August 19, 21 and 23. SB MAYA, GIVE ME A TITLE A mother who loses an arm while chopping vegetables, a ketchup spill that floods the seas of the world, a 'fake prison' carted off to a prison for fake prisons: these are among the many disconcerting images in this series of whimsical vignettes that director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) devised and animated for his four-year-old daughter Maya, using paper cutouts and an app on his phone. This is screening as part of MIFF's Schools Program, but the bright colours and casual absurdity could appeal especially to viewers around Maya's age, who may not be too worried if they can't read subtitles or understand French, and who will probably take the anxious images of disaster in their stride. August 13, 19 and 23. JW LATE SHIFT With the pace of a thriller and the serious clout of a documentary, Petra Volpe's account of a night in the life of a Swiss nurse is, quite simply, one of the year's most brilliant films. Leonie Benesch, so good in The Teachers' Lounge and as a translator for the US press in September 5, interned in a cancer ward for months to master nurse Floria's skilled ministrations, heavy walk – to carry her for eight hours – and perpetual emotional availability. We watch her deal with a runaway elderly man, with a wild accusation of negligence from three suddenly bereaved young men, and a private patient whining about his tea: everybody is terrified, so nobody is reasonable. August 13, 19 and 24. SB BRAND NEW LANDSCAPE The 26-year-old Japanese writer-director Yuiga Danzuka has described this promising first feature as directly autobiographical. But you wouldn't necessarily guess that from his approach, which is all about emotional restraint. Set in Tokyo, the minimal plot follows three members of an estranged family: a workaholic landscape architect (Kenichi Endo), his daughter (Mai Kiryu), who's starting to have mixed feelings about her forthcoming marriage, and his younger son (Kodai Kurosaki) who keeps to himself when not working for a florist as a delivery driver. The unspoken emotion is in the way Danzuka films motorways, shopping centres, cafeterias, waiting rooms, offices and construction sites: impersonal spaces that could be found in any modern city, but are imbued here with a particular sense of loss. August 14 and 23. JW Loading
The Age
06-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
MIFF made easy: 15 films that should be on your viewing list
The Melbourne International Film Festival kicks off on August 7 with a packed program that includes everything from premiere features to documentaries and rarely seen classics. If you're struggling to decide what to see, these highlights from our resident film experts are a good place to start. ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA A film in two parts, about how life is and isn't like the movies. Part one, set in 2007, is a buddy movie about a burly, affable restaurateur (Majd Eid), his student employee (Nader Abd Alhay) and their adventures in the drug trade. Part two takes place two years on, when the student is cast in a low-budget film about a militant leader. This entertainment with serious intentions was written and directed by Arab and Tarzan Nasser, Palestinian twins based in Jordan. What has become of their homeland in the past couple of years is addressed only obliquely – but speaking of fantasy and reality, it's not for nothing an opening title card cites Donald Trump's vision of Gaza's future as the 'Riviera of the Middle East'. August 14 and 23. JW HARVEST Athina Rachel Tsangari, a leading light in the so-called 'weird wave' of Greek cinema in the 2000s, shifts focus here to a remote Scottish village during the Clearances, where cut-throat capitalism is about to overturn a social order grounded in myth, tradition and the seasons. Caleb Landry Jones, so memorable in Nitram, is the village's acceptable outsider; his childhood bond with their benign laird forever sets him apart from the other peasants, but he is a strong worker, devoted to this living land. Tsangari's interest has always been on power, bullying and submission; in this savage story, the dispossession of a community is given horns and muddy hoofs to become a new sort of folk tale, pulsating with violence. August 18 and 22. SB KONTINENTAL '25 The Romanian satirist Radu Jude (Bad Luck Banging) may be cynical about everything to do with institutions, but he seems quite fond of people, especially his overworked, morally compromised heroines such as Orsolya (Eszter Tompa), a bailiff who blames herself for the suicide of a homeless man she helped evict from a basement. While her sense of guilt is no laughing matter, her quest to come to terms with it propels her in some unexpected directions. This isn't as busy as some of Jude's other films, but there's still a lot to take in, from animatronic dinosaurs to Zen parables to sidelights on the history of Cluj, the Transylvanian city Orsolya drives around in circles as if hopelessly seeking a way out. August 9 and 13. JW BLUE MOON Loading The nighthawk world of '50s Broadway bars is evoked in Richard Linklater's chamber drama about the disintegration of one of the great musical theatre partnerships, Rodgers and Hart. Ethan Hawke may be an odd fit for lyricist Lorenz Hart, whose short stature was a torment to him, but he brings real pathos to his portrait of a one-time talent, raddled by booze, who sees his era passing in front of his eyes. Andrew Scott as Richard Rodgers, who has ditched Hart for the much slicker Oscar Hammerstein, is entirely justified but still makes your flesh crawl; Margaret Qualley is Hart's utterly inappropriate young crush. Linklater, never an obtrusive director, goes with the story's theatrical flow, pulling back the curtain on a vanished era. August 9, 16 and 24. SB WE BURY THE DEAD When a high-tech weapons test kills off the entire population of Tasmania, there's not much anyone from the mainland can do except get on with the grim task of body disposal. Except that some of the corpses are said to be coming back to life, a tantalising rumour for volunteers such as Ava (Daisy Ridley) who can't let go of the memory of her dead husband. In his 2013 film These Final Hours, Australian writer-director Zak Hilditch showed us what the end of the world might look like from the vantage point of Perth. This companion piece offers another contained vision of apocalypse, taking advantage of the versatility of the zombie genre to tell a story that is solemn, blackly funny and grisly by turns. August 13 and 15. JW THE MASTERMIND Josh O'Connor is initially unrecognisable as beardy slacker JB, an art school drop-out who regularly wanders his quiet, leafy town's art gallery with his family on weekends. Here he gets the idea for his grand gesture: getting some of his stoner friends together, putting stockings on their heads and stealing the museum's Arthur Dove collection. It is the '70s, before security cameras; the guards are always half-asleep; his dad's status as a conservative judge (Bill Camp, also terrific) should lift him beyond suspicion: what could go wrong? Everything, of course. Independent spirit Kelly Reichardt, whose low-key Americana includes reworkings of the western and the road movie, deconstructs the heist movie with typically bleak wit, skewering the likes of feckless JB in the process. August 8 and 16. SB THE ICE TOWER This eerie riff on The Snow Queen updates Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairytale to the 1970s – but as in Lucile Hadzihalilovic's other films, the rules of the real world barely apply. The heroine is a teenage runaway (Clara Pacini), who finds her way onto a film set where they're shooting an adaptation of the Andersen story, starring a diva (Marion Cotillard) who proves to be the same kind of chilly tyrant as the character she's playing. There isn't much plot: the drama is in how the two women look at each other, and in Hadzihalilovic's gift for charged, paradoxical images, such as an ice rink viewed from a distance that is made to resemble both a bare stage and a warm, glowing haven. August 16 and 23. JW SOUND OF FALLING Loading A family farm in northern Germany, seen in various eras, in various states of repair and through the eyes of four girls at different times, is the creaking heart of Mascha Schilinski's extraordinary film, the greatest discovery of this year's Cannes Film Festival. Erika amuses herself walking on crutches belonging to her uncle, who has lost his leg in the Great War; Alma is given a funereal black dress to wear to a party around 1900; Angelika lives with the strange, pinched chill of the Cold War. We slip between different eras, which echo and mirror each other, in this haunting meditation on death and the persistence of memory; meanwhile, the girls struggle against the confines of their different lives. August 20, 22 and 24. SB CLOUD Kiyoshi Kurosawa might be called the M. Night Shyamalan of Japan, although he's been telling uncanny, twisty suspense stories for a good deal longer. There's nothing openly supernatural in this tale of a young man (Masaki Suda) who embarks on a career reselling fake designer goods online, a get-rich-quick scheme that eventually brings catastrophe on virtually everyone around him. But the atmosphere is closer to a horror film than a conventional thriller, with the hero's need to control his environment spreading to the other characters like a disease. Kurosawa is something of a control freak in his own right – and his cool, deliberate style, based largely on emptied-out long shots, is ideal for picturing a world where nothing but profit counts. August 17 and 21. JW ENZO The late French director Laurent Cantet, best known for his Palme D'Or winner The Class, was obliged by his worsening cancer to hand over direction of Enzo to his co-writer, Robin Campillo. Campillo, whose own style in films such as BPM is frantic and festive, here maintains Cantet's stately seriousness in a profile of Enzo (terrific newcomer Eloy Pohu), who has defied his professional parents by taking a job as an apprentice builder. He is terrible at his job; what holds him is the hope of defining himself as a man and his secret crush on Vlad, one of two Ukrainian builders wrestling with the call of duty. Under the ferocious Mediterranean sun, Enzo's romantic yearnings rise like new sap. August 16, 20 and 23. SB CHAIN REACTIONS Marking the 50th anniversary of Tobe Hooper's horror classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Alexandre O. Philippe's documentary is an admirably serious and respectful piece of work, letting us hear at length from five high-profile fans who come at the film from different angles but agree on viewing it as some kind of masterpiece. The line-up includes Stephen King, filmmakers Takashi Miike and Karyn Kasuma, comedian Patton Oswalt – and most delightfully, the Australian horror scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, who begins her segment by discussing her childhood memories of Picnic at Hanging Rock. If shock and revulsion aren't what you crave from cinema, you might learn something here about why others feel differently, even if you need to look away from the more gruesome clips. August 9, 12 and 16. JW APRIL Against the majesty and fertility of eastern Georgia's rural landscape, a stoic obstetrician races between patients, trying to deliver babies safely by day and, after hours, giving kitchen abortions to women and girls already overburdened by poverty and patriarchy. First-trimester abortion is legal, but effectively proscribed in a country haunted by priests and monsters. Everyone knows that Nina is an abortionist; many know that she picks up men on the road, the only kind of intimacy that fits into her work schedule. When she delivers a stillborn baby, the authorities seize the opportunity to rid themselves of this doctor for whom the old ways are not good enough. Dea Kulumbegashvili's film is shattering, but also profoundly human. August 19, 21 and 23. SB MAYA, GIVE ME A TITLE A mother who loses an arm while chopping vegetables, a ketchup spill that floods the seas of the world, a 'fake prison' carted off to a prison for fake prisons: these are among the many disconcerting images in this series of whimsical vignettes that director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) devised and animated for his four-year-old daughter Maya, using paper cutouts and an app on his phone. This is screening as part of MIFF's Schools Program, but the bright colours and casual absurdity could appeal especially to viewers around Maya's age, who may not be too worried if they can't read subtitles or understand French, and who will probably take the anxious images of disaster in their stride. August 13, 19 and 23. JW LATE SHIFT With the pace of a thriller and the serious clout of a documentary, Petra Volpe's account of a night in the life of a Swiss nurse is, quite simply, one of the year's most brilliant films. Leonie Benesch, so good in The Teachers' Lounge and as a translator for the US press in September 5, interned in a cancer ward for months to master nurse Floria's skilled ministrations, heavy walk – to carry her for eight hours – and perpetual emotional availability. We watch her deal with a runaway elderly man, with a wild accusation of negligence from three suddenly bereaved young men, and a private patient whining about his tea: everybody is terrified, so nobody is reasonable. August 13, 19 and 24. SB BRAND NEW LANDSCAPE The 26-year-old Japanese writer-director Yuiga Danzuka has described this promising first feature as directly autobiographical. But you wouldn't necessarily guess that from his approach, which is all about emotional restraint. Set in Tokyo, the minimal plot follows three members of an estranged family: a workaholic landscape architect (Kenichi Endo), his daughter (Mai Kiryu), who's starting to have mixed feelings about her forthcoming marriage, and his younger son (Kodai Kurosaki) who keeps to himself when not working for a florist as a delivery driver. The unspoken emotion is in the way Danzuka films motorways, shopping centres, cafeterias, waiting rooms, offices and construction sites: impersonal spaces that could be found in any modern city, but are imbued here with a particular sense of loss. August 14 and 23. JW Loading
Egypt Today
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Egypt Today
Cannes winner ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA set for release across France
Fresh off winning the Best Director Award at Cannes, Tarzan and Arab Nasser's comedy-drama ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA is set to release in theaters across France this month, offering audiences a unique gripping narrative from the heart of Gaza. The screenings, which will be held in the presence of one-half of the director duo Arab Nasser, will be held on the following dates: Thursday, June 19th – Premiere in Marseille at Les Variétés Friday, June 20th – Premiere in Toulouse at American Cosmo Sunday, June 22nd– Premiere in Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône at Utopia Stella Monday, June 23rd – Premiere in Paris at mk2 Gambetta Tuesday, June 24th – Premiere in Orléans Wednesday, June 25th – Premiere in Paris at Majestic Bastille Thursday, June 26th – Premiere in Saint-Denis at L'Ecra ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA explores the gripping story of Yahya, a young student who forges a friendship with Osama, a charismatic restaurant owner with a big heart. Together, they begin peddling drugs while delivering falafel sandwiches, but they are soon forced to grapple with a corrupt cop and his oversized ego. An international co-production between France, Palestine, Germany, and Portugal with Qatar and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the film boasts a stellar cast that includes Nader Abd Alhay, who is known for his role as Sami in FARAH, which is streaming now on Netflix; Ramzi Maqdisi (GHOST HUNTING, awarded Best Documentary at the Berlinale), Majd Eid (Cannes Winning title HOLY SPIDER); DOP Christophe Graillot (RIDE ABOVE) and editor Sophie Reine, who won the Best Editing Award at the César Awards for her work in THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Directed by the Nasser Brothers from a screenplay co-written with Amer Nasser and Marie Legrand, ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA is produced by Rani Massalha and Marie Legrand from Les Films du Tambour and Muriel Merlin of Lyly Productions. Additionally, the film was co-produced with Rise Studios (Amanda Turnbull and Ziad Srouji), Made in Palestine Project (Rashid Abdelhamid), Red Balloon Film (Dorothe Benemeier), Riva Filmproduktion (Mickael Eckelt and Lena Zimmerhackel), Ukbar Filmes (Pandora Da Cunha Telles and Pablo Iraola), and executive produced by Jordan Pioneers Multi Media & Slate Films Services (Khaled Haddad) in association with A. A. Films (Ahmed Amer), Cocoon Films (Sawsan Asfari), Radio e Televisao De Portugal, and Kometa (Edyta Janczak-Hiriart). Twin brothers Tarzan and Arab Nasser were born in Gaza in 1988. In 2013, their short film CONDOM LEAD was selected for the Main Competition at Cannes. Their first feature film, DÉGRADÉ, also premiered as part of Cannes' Critics' Week. Their second feature, GAZA MON AMOUR, premiered in the Horizons Program of the Venice International Film Festival and was Palestine's submission to the 2021 Academy Awards.
Egypt Today
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Egypt Today
Viva Palestine: ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA triumphs at Cannes with Best Director Award
Palestinian cinema celebrates a landmark achievement as Tarzan and Arab Nasser's comedy-drama ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA claims the prestigious Best Director award at Cannes' Un Certain Regard section, where it world premiered to resounding applause, captivating audiences and critics alike. Commenting on this triumph, Palestinian twin directors Tarzan and Arab Nasser expressed their gratitude for the recognition and the support they received all the way through. Following its world premiere, the film garnered widespread acclaim from critics worldwide, with Clotilde Chinnici (Loud and Clear Reviews) describing it as "Necessary and remarkable, ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA is a beautifully shot and politically significant film, especially relevant today." Meanwhile, Jonathan Romney (Screen Daily) praised its impact, stating, "This taut, succinct film should win widespread attention following its bow in Un Certain Regard." Also, Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter described Once Upon a Time in Gaza as 'Small-scale yet broad in its implications, especially considering what's happened since October 7th,' highlighting how the film 'touchingly portrays characters doing their best in a place that grants them few options and even fewer opportunities.' This victory marks yet another milestone for the Nasser brothers at Cannes. Their short film CONDOM LEAD was selected for the Main Competition, while their debut feature DÉGRADÉ premiered at Cannes' Critics' Week. ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA is their second feature, following GAZA MON AMOUR, which world premiered in the Venice International Film Festival's Horizons Program and was Palestine's submission to the 2021 Academy Awards. ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA explores the gripping story of Yahya, a young student who forges a friendship with Osama, a charismatic restaurant owner with a big heart. Together, they begin peddling drugs while delivering falafel sandwiches, but they are soon forced to grapple with a corrupt cop and his oversized ego. An international co-production between France, Palestine, Germany, and Portugal with Qatar and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the film boasts a stellar cast that includes Nader Abd Alhay, who is known for his role as Sami in FARAH, which is streaming now on Netflix; Ramzi Maqdisi (GHOST HUNTING, awarded Best Documentary at the Berlinale), Majd Eid (Cannes Winning title HOLY SPIDER); DOP Christophe Graillot (RIDE ABOVE) and editor Sophie Reine, who won the Best Editing Award at the César Awards for her work in THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Directed by the Nasser Brothers from a screenplay co-written with Amer Nasser and Marie Legrand, ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA is produced by Rani Massalha and Marie Legrand from Les Films du Tambour and Muriel Merlin of Lyly Productions. Additionally, the film was co-produced with Rise Studios (Amanda Turnbull and Ziad Srouji), Made in Palestine Project (Rashid Abdelhamid), Red Balloon Film (Dorothe Benemeier), Riva Filmproduktion (Mickael Eckelt and Lena Zimmerhackel), Ukbar Filmes (Pandora Da Cunha Telles and Pablo Iraola), and executive produced by Jordan Pioneers Multi Media & Slate Films Services (Khaled Haddad) in association with A. A. Films (Ahmed Amer), Cocoon Films (Sawsan Asfari), Radio e Televisao De Portugal, and Kometa (Edyta Janczak-Hiriart). MAD Distribution manages the film's distribution and sales across the Arab world, The Party Film Sales oversees international sales, while Dulac Distribution handles the French distribution rights. Throughout its production phases, the film received support from prestigious institutions, including Aide aux Cinémas du Monde - CNC, Eurimages, Moin Film Fund Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, Fundo CNC-Ica De Apoio A Coproducao Franco-Portuguesa, the Doha Film Institute, the Royal Film Commission's Jordan Film Fund, and Ciclic And Région Centre-Val De Loire.
