The Syrian Bride (2005) will be shown by the Williams Lake Film Club on its regular night Tuesday, Feb. 11.
Back doors to the Gibraltar Room open at 6:30 p.m. for the 7 p.m. showing.
This is our last film before Valentine’s Day so we thought we’d choose a film about love ... and marriage.
The Syrian Bride is a powerful film about physical, mental and emotional borders and the courage it takes to cross them.
Told with great humour and compassion, its story provides an emotionally stirring look at the human side of political conflict, focusing on the hopes and dreams of one family trapped in this no-man’s land. Maybe even most amazing, this film has been a collaboration between Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers.
Shot on location in the Golan Heights, the languages in this 97 minute film are Arabic/Hebrew/English/Russian/French with English subtitles.
The Syrian Bride was shot on location in the Golan Heights, Isreal’s mountainous northern region, one of the most beautiful and most traveled parts of the country. According to wikipedia the Golan Heights is the area captured from Syria and occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War, territory which Israel effectively annexed in 1981.
It still is under dispute and considered a no-man’s land between two nations. This is where Mona and her family live and try to arrange for her wedding day.
To most women this is the happiest event in your life. To Mona, however, it just might be the saddest day. Once she crosses the border into Syria to be with her future husband, she will never be allowed back to her beloved family in the Druze village of Majdal Shams. The border into Israel is closed to Syrians.
There are many characters in this international society: Mona’s father Hammed is a leading political figure in this city; he had arranged for this daughter’s wedding to Tallel many years previous and Tallel has in the meantime become a successful actor in Syria. His older son comes back from Russia, where he now lives with his wife, but his father still will not forgive him for leaving the land of his birth.
His younger son is a financial wolf in Italy, who uses his visit home to reconnect with his former girlfriend, an American United Nations representative. His youngest daughter tries to help her sister Mona to deal with the stress and details of the big day as she is being caught between being a modern woman and having to adhere to the old traditions. Admission for Tuesday films is $9 regular, $8 for film club members, and $6 for seniors (65+) and high school and TRU students.
And remember, this Saturday, Feb. 8, you will finally be able to see the film INUK from Greenland, about Inuit people caught in modern society.
The fee for Saturday is $5 (free for children under age 12).