Happy Holidays

Local title
Häid pühi
Original title
Yin'Ād Aliku
Director
Scandar Copti
Country
State of Palestine, Germany, France, Italy, Qatar
Year
2024
Festival
28th Black Nights Film Festival
Programme
Screen International Critics' Choice
Genre
drama
Subject
society, familial relationships, religion

Scandar Copti follows the Oscar-nominated “Ajami” with this compelling spliced drama.

Rami, a Palestinian from Haifa, is dealing with his Jewish girlfriend’s sudden change of heart about her planned abortion. His mother, Hanan, is facing a financial crisis and becomes entangled in complications while seeking compensation for her daughter’s Fifi accident. Miri is forced to confront her daughter’s depression while also working to undermine her sister’s pregnancy with Rami. Fifi grapples with the guilt of hiding a secret that risks her family’s reputation and her burgeoning relationship with Dr. Walid.

The daily news cycle brings us endless stories of inter-tribal conflict. Sometimes the tribes are nation states, sometimes ethnic or religious groups, sometimes political blocs. What the conflict narrative invariably misses is how those tribes police their own members. That’s the needle-sharp focus of Palestinian filmmaker Scandar Copti’s new drama, which places an Arab-speaking Israeli family at the hub of a wheel of intersecting stories. They and their Jewish neighbours are ‘good people’, yet we realise with a growing sense of dread that some of them are capable of doing terrible things in the name of what they consider to be right. It’s a globally resonant drama that will appeal to cineastes with a taste for tough, gritty, thought-provoking stories.

Lee Marshall, Screen International

Director
Scandar Copti
Screenwriter
Scandar Copti
Cast
Manar Shehab, Wafaa Aoun, Toufic Danial, Meirav Memoresky
Cinematographer
Tim Kuhn
Sound
Maximilien Gobiet, Pierre Tucat, Matthias Schwab
Runtime
Language
Arabic, Hebrew
Subtitles
English
Other festivals
Chicago, Toronto
Director
Scandar Copti

Screenings

2nd Hall Apollo Kino Coca-Cola Plaza
Screening020202 / Häid pühi
SubtitlesEnglish
Screening duration
6th Hall Apollo Kino Coca-Cola Plaza
Screening050603 / Häid pühi
SubtitlesEnglish
Screening duration
Hall 1 Kino Artis
Screening122103 / Häid pühi
SubtitlesEnglish
Screening duration
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