The Twin Cities Arab Film Festival last month featured almost 40 films from 15 different Arab countries. Films are a great medium where Arabs get to tell their own stories.
I saw a film by the Palestinian director Elia Suleiman, “It Must Be Heaven,” a story of a Palestinian who left his hometown looking for another place to call home, moving around, from Paris to New York. What was different about this film is that Suleiman used humor and imagination to tell the Palestinian story, and for a change portrayed Palestinians as more than just participants in a political conflict.
Suleiman also took the liberty of invoking stereotypes about the West. Why should the West have all the fun? In “It Must Be Heaven,” you see Paris streets filled with lovemaking, models and fashion shows. In New York, streets are filled with police, crime and drugs. Shoppers in supermarkets carry machine guns instead of shopping bags.
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