''It Must Be Heaven'' is a 2019 internationally co-produced

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending ( black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the o ...

directed by, written by, and starring,

Elia Suleiman Elia Suleiman ( ar, إيليا سليمان, ; born 28 July 1960) is a Palestinian film director and actor of Rûm Greek Orthodox origin. He is best known for the 2002 film '' Divine Intervention'' ( ar, يد إلهية), a modern tragic comedy on ...

. It was selected to compete for the

Palme d'Or The Palme d'Or (; en, Golden Palm) is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Fe ...

at the

2019 Cannes Film Festival The 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival took place from 14 to 25 May 2019. Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu served as jury president. The Palme d'Or went to the South Korean film ''Parasite'', directed by Bong Joon-ho; Bong became t ...

. It was selected as the Palestinian entry for the

Best International Feature Film The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to ...

at the

92nd Academy Awards The 92nd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored films released in 2019 and took place on February 9, 2020, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, beginning at 5:00 ...

, but it was not nominated.

Plot

A man escapes Palestine for a new beginning, only to encounter the same problems as back home.

Cast

Reception

, the film holds a approval rating on

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "An entrancing blend of the poignant and the absurd, ''It Must Be Heaven'' finds writer-director Elia Suleiman returning to action in peak form." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film holds a rating of 69 out of 100, based on 8 reviews, indicating "generally favorable".

Awards

At the

, ''It Must Be Heaven'' received the

FIPRESCI Prize The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...

for Best Film In Competition. At Cannes it also received a Special Mention. At the 2019 Brussels International Film Festival (BRIFF), the film was awarded 4,000 € in broadcasting rights in Belgium.

References

External links