It Must Be Heaven
or
‘A Global Palestine’
Thursday 20 January, 7pm
Elia Suleiman is the celebrated Palestinian filmmaker whose previous films — three ‘fiction’ features, a documentary and several shorts — have seen him established as a film festival favourite. His films are on one level absurdist comedies and on another cogent and original critiques of the Occupation of his homeland.
His latest film It Must Be Heaven won a prize at Cannes in 2019 but didn’t arrive in the UK until 2021. It sees him travelling from Nazareth to Paris and New York. Through his mute observation of a series of comedic vignettes he presents his argument that these two major Western cities now offer similar experiences to those that Suleiman finds in Nazareth.
His film is very beautiful and the vignettes are sometimes very funny and sometimes directly or indirectly connected to the Occupation of Palestine. But what sense can we make of the film as a whole and Suleiman’s distinctive approach to his work? That’s what we will discuss in our Zoom event.
It Must Be Heaven is available to rent on most of the usual streaming services such as Apple, BFI, Amazon, Curzon, YouTube etc.