Divine Intervention People and the Land

"One of the top ten films of the year!"--Time on Divine Intervention

The checkpoint separating Palestinian Ramallah and Israeli Jerusalem is the unlikely setting for Elia Suleiman's Divine Intervention, a light-handed political satire and love story evoking such masters of comic minimalism as Buster Keaton and Jim Jarmusch.

Consisting of a series of humorous, elegant, and politically biting sketches, the film follows the main character, identified simply as "ES" (and played by the Palestinian-born director), as he tends to his dying father and journalist girlfriend, who lives across the checkpoint on the West Bank. (2002; 92 mins.)

The award-winning documentary People and the Land, codirected by Riad Bahhur and Columbus filmmaker Tom Hayes, offers a provocative look at the Palestinian/Israeli conflict from a human rights point of view. (1996; 58 mins.)