Rana's Wedding

Rana's Wedding
Poster
Directed by	Hany Abu-Assad
Produced by	Bero Bayer and George Ibrahim
Written by	Ihab lamy and Liana Badr
Starring	Clara Khoury,Khalifa Natour and Ismael Dabbagh
Music by	Mariecke Van Der Linden and Bashar Abd Rabou
Cinematography	Brigit Hillenius
Distributed by	Arab Film Distribution
Release dates	2002 (2002)
Running time	86 minutes
Country	Palestine
Language	Arabic

Rana's Wedding also known as Jerusalem, Another Day (Arabic, القدس في يوم أخر ) is a Palestinian film released in 2002, produced in partnership with the Netherlands and funded by the Palestinian Film Foundation. The film was shot in Jerusalem under the direction of the Palestinian Director Hany Abu-Assad who is one of the first Palestinian film directors to reach Cannes Film Festival with his film, that was selected for screening at the International Critics' Week in 2002.^[1]^[2] The film was also screened at multiple film festivals world wide and received many excellent international reviews and awards. Rana's Wedding was able to present the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in an exceptional and compelling way, by using romance and dark comedy genres which left the audience astonished by this unique approach, that was able to portray, (through the couples marriage drama) a vivid image of a Palestinian's daily struggle, towards living a somewhat normal life.

Plot

The Film depicts a 17-year old girl called Rana that is subjected to a crucial life-changing decision at a very young age. Because her father decides to leave Palestine and relocate to Egypt, due to the chaotic working and living conditions, to try and maintain a decent living to support his family. She wakes up one day and finds a letter from her father informing her about his difficult decision adding to it, he also involves her in his plans and provides her with two choices,^[3] either to travel with him to Egypt and carry on with her education there under his watchful eye, or stay in Palestine and get married to make sure that someone is guarding her in his absence. Although the options seem fairly reasonable, there is a twist, her father will only allow her to marry one of the men that he has mentioned on a list with the letter, because they are the most reputable and trustworthy men in Jerusalem, as well as, she has to take that critical decision just 10 hours before her father departs from Palestine.^[4]

Rana is left shocked and disappointed with the options, after reading the letter she decides to run away from home in search of her lover Khalil that her father does not approve of because of his career, therefore, does not include him in the list of people she can marry.^[3] Rana desperately searches for Khalil leaving no home, family or friend unasked about his whereabouts to inform him about her critical situation. As she searches for him she is faced with many challenges along the way from Israeli soldiers, road blocks and physical conflicts between Palestinian and Israeli soldiers.^[5] After hours of searching she finally finds his location and rushes to him, finding him in the theatre, working on directing one of his plays.

At last she finds him and tells him everything she has been through the past few hours, and confidently asks him for his hand in marriage, rushing him to take a decision in order to find a sheikh to marry them before her father sets off. Together they set out on an even longer journey to reach the sheikh and her father to approve of their marriage. They were able to find the sheikh and drove him to her father’s house to convince him of the marriage, that he could not object to without any rightful excuse according to Islamic law, the sheikh supported Rana's decision and told her father that the marriage must proceed.^[6] Her father giving into her wishes unwillingly approves, Rana and Khalil then set out on another extremely tiresome mission, getting their papers and preparing themselves for their wedding ceremony.^[7]

At the end tension rises when the wedding is held at Rana's father's house while the sheikh has not shown up to do the ceremony and her dad is getting ready to leave. As she waits restlessly she finds out that the sheikh is stuck at a road block. Her father gets furious and waits no longer, ordering her to come with him in her wedding dress, leaving for Egypt. Riding in the car with her father and her family they pressure and persuade her father to go to the road block for his daughter, finally agreeing they arrive at the road block. When her father and Khalil read their vows in the car, her dad sympathetically gives her away to the man she loves, ending the love story with a heart-warming celebration on the streets of Jerusalem.

The film ends with the words of Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish:

Here on the slopes before sunset and at the gun-mouth of time,
Near orchards deprived of their shadows,
We do what prisoners do,
What the unemployed do:

We nurture hope.
—Mahmoud Darwish

^[4]

Cast

Acting Credits^[8]

Actor	Character Name
Clara Khoury	Rana
Khalifa Natour	Khalil
Ismael Dabbagh	Ramzy
Zuher Fahoum	Father
Bushra Karaman	Grandmother

Production Credits

Position	Name
Director	Hany Abu-Assad
screenplay	Liane Badr
Screenplay	Ihab Lamey
Producer	Bero Beyer
Producer	George Ibrahim
Associate Producer	Mohammad Rachid
story by	Liane Badr
D.O.P	Brigit Hillenius
Editor	Denise Janzee
Music	Mariecke van der Linden
Music	Bashar Abd Rabbou
Costume Designer	Hamada Atallah
Sound Design	Mark Wessner

Production

The Film was shot in East Jerusalem, Ramallah, Palestine. Produced in collaboration with the Netherlands and funded by the Palestinian Film Foundation.^[9] It was filmed during a critical time in the early months of the second Palestinian intifada. Hany Abu-Assad in an interview with journalist Sabah Haider, disucsses the challenges he faced when producing the film "For sure the intifada influenced the production because at the end of the film, reality is stronger than fiction. The occupation, the checkpoints — you don’t want them to interfere with your story but the ugliness of occupation influenced the look of film. As much as you might not want occupation to influence the making of the film, at the end it does influence it.^[10]"

Critical Reception

Box Office

According to the website Box Office Mojo, in 2003 Rana's Wedding was ranked out of the top 50 wedding genre films produced in that year, and received a world ranking of 1108 in foreign films. The film was able to generate $10,604 after only 1 year of release, screening in film festivals around the world.^[11] The Film was officially selected for screening at the International critics week in 2002 at the Cannes Film Festival.

Reviews

The film Rana's Wedding was reviewed by many notable newspapers, websites and critics and overall received pleasing reviews.

Rana's Wedding was reviewed by Stephen Holden for the The New York Times in 2003, discussing the plot and providing the film with great support to increase viewers interest towards this unique story.^[5]
It was reviewed by Al Bawaba ^[12] 2002, who identifyied it as one of the first Palestinian films to have an impact on the Arabic films being screened at Cannes and was able to increase the Arab presence in the festival.^[2]
The website Metacritic ^[13] presents a large number of critics stating their opinion about the film and providing it with great reviews.^[13]
An article written by Janice Page in 2004 found at Boston.com article collection, evaluates and supports the film with a great review.^[3]
About.com, rated Rana's Wedding, 3.5 stars out of 5, based on a review written by Jürgen Fauth, supporting the movie and evaluating its plot.^[14]
Rotten Tomatoes, provides positive and negative reviews on the film giving the film an overall rating of 93% on the tomato meter.^[9]
IMBD users rate movie as a 6.7 out of 10 ^[15]
Amazon.com includes editorial reviews written by Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun-Times and Ann Hornaday, for the Washington Post ^[16]

Awards and Nominations

Awards

Won Grand Prize in Cologne Mediterranean Film Festival, and Clara Khoury as best actress in (2002).^[17]
Clara Khoury won best actress from Marrakech International Film Festival in (2002).^[17]
Won the Golden Antigone award from Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival in (2002) ^[17]
Won the Golden Anchor award from Haifa International Film Festival in (2003) ^[17]
Won the Nestor Almendros for courage in film making, Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in (2003) ^[8]

Nominations

Nominated for the Golden star award from Marrakech International Film Festival in (2002)^[17]
Nominated for the Golden Alexander Award by the Thessaloniki Film Festival in (2002)^[17]
Nominated by Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema for Best Film in (2003) ^[17]
Nominated for Golden Dolphin award by Festróia - Tróia International Film Festival in (2003) ^[17]

Legacy

Rana’s Wedding is considered to be the first film that approaches and show cases the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in a novel way, leaving viewers astonished by this unique approach, because the film did not incorporate the common styles of films that discuss life circumstances in Palestine.^[7] In which they would always focus on tragic plots that contain similar content of war, murder, hunger and destruction. Instead Rana’s Wedding portrayed all these events but in an indirect and compelling way, through a love story, and amazingly did not reduce the intensity of the Palestinian Israeli conflict. Through a plot that was able to portray how people still try to live and try to create an everyday normal life, despite the numbers that die in Palestine each day. People still laugh, hope, worship, love, work, care for one other, sing and dance, and finally try to have a normal wedding that’s not so normal to many of us.^[18] Rana’s Wedding is just filled with pure heart felt emotions and through the movements of the couple one is able to witness all the different events that take place in Jerusalem, both the joyful and heart-breaking. A film that truly makes Palestinian see hope in a new day and find bliss under all the destruction they see everyday.^[6]

Is one of the first few Arabic films to be screened at Cannes Film Festival and more importantly one of the earliest Palestinian films to reach Cannes and gain a great deal of popularity, success and outstanding reviews. Affecting greatly the Arabic cinema and the Arab presence at Cannes by opening doors to many Palestinian and Arabic film directors to take on the same path and reach Cannes film festival.^[2]

References

External links

Films directed by Hany Abu-Assad

Het 14e kippetje (1998) Rana's Wedding (2002) Paradise Now (2005) Stories on Human Rights (2008) The Courier (2012) Omar (2013)