The Time That Remains

Directed by Elia Suleiman

(In Arabic, Hebrew, French, and English language with English translations)

An Israeli Arab film director from New York returns to Israel to look for an inspiration to direct and write a film about his homeland and its current situation. Here he starts his observation in two areas in Israel: Nazareth and Jerusalem. Here he sees the residents' everyday life, from an old man who plays along with his dog in a fenced doghouse, takes a part-time job as a souvenir seller for Christian tourists in a shop, a car shop mechanic who asks assistance to two young men who doesn't know anything about cars, a priest who tells how this was where Jesus walked in the sea but is now full of trash from tourists, a Palestinian lady that can speak excellent Hebrew who found a cop's radio and stirs the police force up on the streets, a common Nazareth restaurant where everyday we get different people in a vehicle stopping by just to fight in front of the shop, and more vignettes.

Let's just say that rather than getting myself into meeting the famous actors and actresses or even to watch any or all of the films being screened, this wasn't the experience that I got in this previous Doha Tribeca Film Festival highlight events.

But rather the experience as one of the volunteers working to make the event happen.

So we had our all-out meeting on the Aspire Park and saw all of us wonderful people of mixed races who'd like to participate and dedicate their time to make it happen. Here we were now assigned to our preferred departments. We claimed our shirt and badge two days 'fore the start of the event. And on with the show.