Day by day

Habibi Rasak Kharban (Habibi)

Palestine/Netherlands/United Arab Emirates/USA // 2011 // Couleur // 80'
Arabic with French/English subtitles

Swiss première

Based on a 7th-century Arab tale, Habibi tells the story of two young Palestinian students, Leila and Qays, and their forbidden love. This story, as old and as universal as time, gives director Susan Youssef an excuse to show us the reality of the Gaza strip: a subtle counterpoint between delicate images and the prevailing climate of heavy repression. Her disturbing and almost unbearably intense film brilliantly captures the social unease and identity crisis of a reclusive and brutalized society that clings to traditions and religion in a desperate bid to exist. In its imprisonment, Gaza perpetrates the oppression and violence from which it suffers onto its own inhabitants and, in particular, its women. Leaving no room for such free men as poets; no cracks through which love might filter. Leila and Qays’ relationship ends in a dead end– an image that parallels the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Susan Youssef