''Rana's Wedding'', also known as ''Jerusalem, Another Day'' (Arabic, القدس في يوم آخر ), is a Palestinian film released in 2002. It was produced in partnership with the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

and funded by the Palestinian Film Foundation. The film was directed by Palestinian director

Hany Abu-Assad Hany Abu-Assad (; born 11 October 1961) is an Israeli and Dutch film director and screenwriter of Palestinian origin. He has received two Academy Award nominations: in 2006 for his film '' Paradise Now'', and again in 2013 for his film '' Omar ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

. ''Rana's Wedding'' presents the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the metaphor of a couple's marriage drama.

Plot

Rana is a 17-year-old girl living in Palestine. Due to the chaotic working conditions in Palestine, her father decides to relocate to Egypt to try to maintain an income to support his family. Rana wakes up one day to find a letter from her father informing her about his decision and providing her with two choices: either travel with him to Egypt and carry on with her education there under his watchful eye, or stay in Palestine and marry, to make sure that someone is taking care of her in his absence. Her father will only allow her to marry one of the men he lists in his letter and she has only 10 hours in which to choose before her father departs for Egypt. Rana is shocked and disappointed with the options and decides to run away from home in search of her lover Khalil. Her father does not approve of Khalil and Khalil is not included in the list of people she can marry. After hours of searching, she finally discovers his location and rushes to him, finding him in the theatre as he works on directing one of his plays. Rana asks Khalil to marry her and presses him for a decision so that they can be married before her father leaves. They find a sheikh prepared to marry them and drive to her father's house to ask for his approval. Rana's father can find no excuse under Islamic law to prevent the wedding and unwillingly concedes. Tension rises as Rana's father prepares to leave for Egypt and the sheikh has still not arrived to perform the ceremony. Rana discovers that the sheikh is stuck at a roadblock and she, Khalil, and her father drive out to find him. They exchange vows in the car and the film ends with a celebration on the streets of Jerusalem. The closing words come from Palestinian poet

Mahmoud Darwish Mahmoud Darwish (; 13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a Palestinians, Palestinian poet and author who was regarded as Palestine's national poet. In 1988 Darwish wrote the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, which was the formal declarat ...

Cast

* Clara Khoury as Rana * Khalifa Natour as Khalil * Ismael Dabbagh as Ramzy * Zuher Fahoum as Father * Bushra Karaman as Grandmother

Production

The film was shot in

East Jerusalem East Jerusalem (, ; , ) is the portion of Jerusalem that was Jordanian annexation of the West Bank, held by Jordan after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel. Captured and occupied in 1967, th ...

Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ) is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of abov ...

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

. Produced in collaboration with the

and funded by the Palestinian Film Foundation, it was filmed during a critical time in the early months of the

Second Palestinian Intifada The Second Intifada (; ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, was a major uprising by Palestinians against Israel and its Israeli-occupied territories, occupation from 2000. Starting as a civilian uprising in Jerusalem and October 2000 prot ...

. In an interview with journalist Sabah Haider,

discusses 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."

Reception

Box office

According to the website

Box Office Mojo Box Office Mojo is an American website that tracks box-office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. The site was founded in 1998 by Brandon Gray, and was bought in 2008 by IMDb, which itself is owned by Amazon. History Brandon Gray ...

, in 2003 ''Rana's Wedding'' was ranked in the top 50 wedding genre films produced in that year, and received a world ranking of 1108 in foreign films. The film earned $10,604 after in its first year of release. It was selected for screening in the

International Critics' Week Critics' Week (), until 2008 called International Critics' Week ('), is a parallel section to the Cannes Film Festival organized by the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics. History Critics' week was created in 1962, after the French Syndicate of ...

section at the

2002 Cannes Film Festival The 55th Cannes Film Festival took place from 15 to 26 May 2002. American filmmaker David Lynch served as jury president for the main competition. Virginie Ledoyen hosted the opening and closing ceremonies. French-Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski ...

Critical response

The film ''Rana's Wedding'' received largely positive reviews on its release.

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, 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 ...

shows an approval rating of 93% based on reviews from 28 critics, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The website's critical consensus states: "A poignant drama that offers a look at what it is like to live in occupied Palestine." On

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

, the film has a score of 71 out of 100 based on reviews from 19 critics.

Awards and nominations

Awards * Winner of the Grand Prize and Best Actress ( Clara Khoury) at the Cologne Mediterranean Film Festival (2002). * Best Actress ( Clara Khoury) at the

Marrakech International Film Festival The Marrakech International Film Festival (FIFM) (, Amazigh: ⴰⵏⵎⵓⴳⴳⴰⵔ ⴰⴳⵔⴰⵖⵍⴰⵏ ⵏ ⵍⴼⵉⵍⵎ ⴳ ⵎⵕⵕⴰⴽⵛ) is an international film festival held annually in Marrakech, Morocco. It was established i ...

(2002). * Winner of the Golden Antigone Award at Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival (2002) * Winner of the Golden Anchor Award at Haifa International Film Festival (2003) * Winner of the Nestor Almendros Award for courage in film making at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival (2003) Nominations * Nominated for the Golden star award at

(2002) * Nominated for the Golden Alexander Award at the

Thessaloniki Film Festival The Thessaloniki Film Festival is a Thessaloniki-based cultural institution focusing on cinema. The Institution organizes the Thessaloniki International Film Festival every November and the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival every March, while its ...

(2002) * Nominated for Best Film at the

Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema The Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI, ) is an international festival of independent films organized each year in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. History The festival had its first edition in April 1999 and i ...

(2003) * Nominated for the Golden Dolphin award at Festróia - Tróia International Film Festival (2003)

Legacy

* ''Rana’s Wedding'' is considered to be the first film that approaches and showcases the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It was one of the first Arabic films to be screened at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Film Festival (; ), until 2003 called the International Film Festival ('), is the most prestigious film festival in the world. Held in Cannes, France, it previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around ...

, and one of the first Palestinian films shown at the festival.

References

External links

Trailer
at YouTube {{Authority control Films about weddings Palestinian drama films Films directed by Hany Abu-Assad