IT MUST BE HEAVEN

IT MUST BE HEAVEN, 2019
Palestine| DCP, Color, 97’ | English, French, Arabic
Director: Elia Suleiman
Cast: Elia Suleiman, Gael García Bernal, Ali Suliman

Elia Suleiman’s first feature length film, following a long hiatus, It Must Be Heaven competed for the Palme d’Or at Cannes and won the Special Mention award. The film’s protagonist ES, played by the director, and who the director created as some sort of an alter ego for himself, embarks on a journey to raise funds for a new project all the while he searches for a homeland. Starting his journey from Nazareth, a city of Palestine, the director’s homeland, ES goes to Paris to meet with a producer, who ends up rejecting the project, claiming that it isn’t “Palestinian enough.” On the other hand, the driver of the taxi he is riding is extremely excited to be driving a true Palestinian. Wherever ES goes, his homeland Palestine follows and puts him into absurd situations. Suleiman investigates issues of exile, the absurdity of nationalism and identity politics in this film he devotes to Palestine.