Wajib (15)

Our March Screen 2 film will be Wajib...

...a warm, funny and beautifully observed portrait of a father-son relationship from Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir.  Shadi is an architect in Rome, but he's come home to Nazareth for his sister's wedding. As Shadi and his father drive around visiting family and friends in the Christian Palestinian community, hand delivering the invitations (this is the Wajib, or duty, of the title), their relationship is subtly explored. Dad teases Shadi about his hipster clothes to the background of an undercurrent of tension about their hometown's political situation. As the pair visit a succession of homes to pass on the invitations, we get plenty of gentle humour and see a little bit of ordinary, daily life in Palestine. The politics are there, but they are explored through the relationship between Shadi and his dad, picking up themes of inter-generational tension and the timeless dilemma of whether you should stay close to your roots, or leave for a better life. 

"Dry humour and understated heartbreak intersect as Jacir deftly blends the personal and the political in deceptively effortless fashion....With a superb lightness of touch she uncovers the ancient hurts with which these characters wrestle, laying bare the raw nerves beneath the polite smiles." Mark Kermode, The Observer

"Bethlehem-born writer-director Annemarie Jacir, whose producer husband was born in Nazareth, displays a keen instinct, in her third feature, for how the line between public and private lives can become blurred in small towns, where everyone knows each other's business. The result is often very funny, but the premise is also a way in to deeper themes of identity, exile, idealism and compromise." Jason di Rosso - ABC Australia

Tickets cost £4 for adults and £2 for under 18s, and are available online now or in advance from Watts Trading or on the door if not already sold out.