ARABIAN SIGHTS, THE LIGHTER SIDE

Gaza mon amour

TARZAN NASSER, ARAB NASSER
Palestine, France, 2020
87 minutes, Color
Official website

Issa (Salim Daw), stoic and settled into bachelor living, carries a secret torch for Siham (Hiam Abbass). While fishing one night, Issa brings in an unexpected haul. Instead of the usual fish, his net emerges from the Mediterranean with an anatomically correct statue of Apollo in an excited state. Under the cover of darkness, Issa takes the statue home. When a certain protruding part is broken off, it sparks a series of comic events that force Issa out of his shell while casting light on the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of life under the Occupation and, above all, on love. At its core, Gaza mon amour is a romance story anchored in the quiet chemistry between powerhouse actors Daw and Abbass. It is also layered with evocative satire about repressed desire and sex and affirms that life, in spite of everything, continues on amidst the absurdity of living.—Toronto International Film Festival

In Arabic with English subtitles

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