- Director: Susan Youssef
- Country: Palestine/ USA/ The Netherlands/ United Arab Emirates
- Year: 2011
- Length: 78 minutes
- Genre: Drama
- Screening Times: Thursday, March 1st, 2012 at 8 pm
Co-presented with the Toronto Palestine Film Festival
Synopsis
While shooting her documentary Forbidden to Wander, Susan Youssef travelled the Gaza Strip and observed how restricted access impeded development and stability, deepened poverty and radicalized the political conflict, with the resulting violence and despair permeating communities and individual psyches alike. This experience informed the making of Habibi, a tragic romance about Layla (Maisa Abd Elhadi) and Qays (Kais Nashef), university students whose blossoming passion is interrupted when they are forced to return home to their families, their student visas having been revoked during the latest wave of restrictions. As Qays is too poor to convince Layla’s middle-class family that he can provide for her, the young lovers are trapped between two fires: the physical barriers of political oppression and the restrictive, patriarchal ideology of the oppressed themselves. Habibi portrays the reality of the Palestinian occupation with acute intelligence, and boldly proposes that emancipation begins with the individual.
Director’s Bio
Susan Youssef, the writer and director, has been named one of “25 New Faces” to watch for by Filmmaker magazine. Habibi is her first feature film. Her five shorts have screened at venues such as Sundance Film Festival and Museum of Modern Art (NY), and have been acquired for distribution by Video Data Bank, Third World Newsreel, and Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre.
Festivals and Awards
- Best Film, FIPRESCI Prize, Best Actress and Best Editor – Dubai International Film Festival in the Arab Muhr Competition
- Grand Prize – Emerging Narrative Program at IFP’s Independent Film Week
External Links