From: "IAC Buffalo" To: "WNY Activists" Subject: Fw: award winning Palestinian Film comes to buffalo... Date: Sunday, February 09, 2003 10:18 PM "Divine Intervention" An award winning film snubbed by Hollywood showing in NY, DC, Buffalo Starts February 14, 2003 Market Arcade Film & Arts Centre 639 Main Street Buffalo http://buffalo.citysearch.com/section/movies THE DR. STRANGELOVE OF THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT! - David Sterritt, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR HYSTERICAL AND DEVASTATING! - Lorraine Ali, NEWSWEEK Winner of many prestigious international awards, including both the Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2002 Cannes International Film Festival , DIVINE INTERVENTION, directed by Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman, delivers an intense, hallucinogenic and extremely adept exploration of the dreams and nightmares of Palestinians and Israelis living in uncertain times. The film weaves together the stories of a sick father, a stalled screenplay and an unrequited love affair with a beautiful Palestinian woman (Manal Khader) living in Ramallah. An Israeli checkpoint on the Nazareth-Ramallah road forces the couple to rendezvous in an adjacent parking lot. Their relationship and the absurd situations around them serve as metaphors for the lunacy of larger cultural problems, and the result is palpable, bottled personal and political rage. We need your support for this important and wonderful film, the first Palestinian work to receive a full American release. It is of utter urgency that theatergoers attend this film in large numbers during the first weekend (and first week) of its release. The box office numbers will determine how long the film will play as well as act as a bellwether for other theater owners across the country that have yet to book the film. So please come out in support of Divine Intervention, and help us spread the word by forwarding this email to anyone who might also be interested- friends, family, neighbors, coworkers. MORE PRAISE FROM THE CRITICS: "It is impossible not to marvel at Suleiman's knack for turning rage and hopelessness into burlesque. His wry, ultimately humane fatalism suggests that Palestinians and Jews are, in some respects, not so far apart." - A.O. Scott, NEW YORK TIMES "Elia Suleiman's craft, wit, sense of righteousness and fairness not only seduce the moviegoer in me, they compel my world citizenship. Suleiman's poetic essay on Palestinian oppression is the most extraordinary agit-pop since Spike Lee's 1989 Do the Right Thing. At times a silent comedy, a musical provocation, a romantic tragedy, this film brilliantly encapsulates Palestinian-Jewish attraction/repulsion." - Armond White, NEW YORK PRESS "Suleiman uses the most subversive weapon of all - humor - to portray the tumultuous mood in his homeland. In the laughter Suleiman creates from such bleakness, he and the viewer experience a euphoric sensation of triumph in the face of adversity!" -Kirk Honeycutt, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER