SYNOPSIS
Despite being part of a young generation of Palestinian Arabs whose families chose to stay and challenge the Israeli state after Al-Nakba, 17-year-old Tamer and his friends are just like any other group of teenage boys: They clumsily search for drugs, flirt with girls, play video games, and slack off at school.
However, when a beautiful new student, Maysaa, joins their class Tamer immediately falls for her – and is drawn into her political activism. Tamer and Maysaajoin classmate, Safwat, in an operation to covertly raise the Palestinian flag and peacefully disrupt the local celebrations planned for Israel’s Independence Day considered by Palestinians as a day of mourning and memorialization for their displacement 70 years prior.
Unsure of his own political convictions, Tamer must quickly determine what matters to him and what price he is willing to pay for freedom.
ALAMA, by Filmmaker Kiras Khoury, is a skillful examination of the fraught political awakening young Palestinians are forced to undergo; this TIFF world premiere “perfectly captures teenage fearlessness and bravado along with a certain cluelessness about how the real-world works,” according to this excerpt by Variety. An striking debut feature film from Firas Khoury, ALAM marries conversations around nationalism and iconography with the universal themes of growing up.
Select Festivals & Awards
- Asia Pacific Screen Awards (2022) | Nominated, Asia Pacific Screen Award, Best Youth Feature Film
- Cairo International Film Festival (2022) | Winner, Best Film, Audience Award & Best Actor (Mahmood Bakri)
- Kerala International Film Festival (2022) | Winner, NETPAC Award for Asian Film, Winner, Best Debut Director
- Cairo International Film Festival (2022) | Winner, Audience Award, Best Actor (Mahmood Bakri)
- Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival (2023)
- London Palestine Film Festival (2023)
- Tromso International Film Festival (2023)
- Santa Barbara International Film Festival (2023)
- International Film Festival of Ottawa (2023)
- Moscow International Film Festival (2023)
- ALFILM, the Arab Film Festival of Berlin (2023)
- Chicago Palestine Film Festival (2023)
- Rome Film Fest (2022)
- Toronto International Film Festival (2022)
About Film Movement: Founded in 2002, Film Movement is a North American distributor of award-winning independent and foreign films based in New York City. It has released more than 300 feature films and shorts culled from prestigious film festivals worldwide. Film Movement’s theatrical releases include American independent films, documentaries, and foreign art house titles. Its catalog includes titles by directors such as Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Lee Isaac Chung, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Maren Ade, Jessica Hausner, Andrei Konchalovsky, Andrzej Wajda, Diane Kurys, Ciro Guerra and Melanie Laurent.
In 2015, Film Movement launched its reissue label Film Movement Classics, featuring new restorations released theatrically as well as on Blu-ray and DVD, including films by such noted directors as Ang Lee, Eric Rohmer, Luchino Visconti, Stanley Kwan, Peter Greenaway, Bille August, Marleen Gorris, Takeshi Kitano, Arturo Ripstein, King Hu, Sergio Corbucci and Ettore Scola. For more information, please visit www.filmmovement.com. Visit www.filmmovementplus.com for more information about Film Movement Plus, Film Movement’s critically lauded streaming subscription service.
Editor, Publisher Gregg W. Morris @ gregghc@comcast.net, profgreggwmorris@gmail.co