The movie was shot and is based in the West Bank, Palestine.
A Doha Film Institute (DFI) funded film based in Palestine, “The Teacher”, is set to make a world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September, filmmaker Farah Nabulsi announced on Saturday.
“To get here I’ve worked night and day for the last 4 years (and just days for even longer), literally sweat, blood and tears, but of course I couldn’t have got here without every single person who worked with me on this film, some at different stages and some right from the start,” Nabulsi said in an Instagram post.
The film was among the recipients of the DFI’s 2021 spring grants, joining a list of Nabulsi’s films that have portrayed the daily struggles of Palestinians under the ongoing Israeli occupation. The movie was shot and is based in the West Bank, Palestine.
The Palestinian-British filmmaker’s latest movie centres on the struggles of Basem El-Saleh, a Palestinian school teacher, who is grieving the loss of his son.
The teacher then takes care of his late son’s childhood friends, Adam and Yacoub, before Lisa, a volunteer at the school, enters the picture to join him in taking care of the boys. Yacoub is later killed by an Israeli settler.
The movie’s description entails that “Basem is forced to strike an impossible balance between his own motives, his growing love for Lisa and the sacrifice required to save Adam” as he seeks revenge for the killing of Yacoub.
The film tells the story of an actual prisoner swap in 2011, when Israel released more than 1,000 Palestinians in exchange for then-abducted IOF soldier, Gilad Shalit.
Some of Nabulsi’s famous works include “The Present”, a film that portrays the reality of life under the Israeli occupation and its control over Palestinians’ mobility through many military checkpoints.
The movie follows the journey of a father, Yusef, and his young daughter who are on a mission to buy his wife a gift for their wedding anniversary.
Like many Palestinians in the West Bank, he struggles to pass through one of Israel’s many checkpoints on the way to the store, where he hopes to buy some groceries and the gift – a refrigerator.
Despite the presence of his young daughter, occupation forces fail to show compassion towards the father and refuse him entry. He is kept there all day for intimidation purposes and placed behind bars as his daughter watches on.
The film was nominated for an Oscar and is available on Netflix.
