ALAM

High-school rebel Tamer and his gang are mostly committed to smoking weed, messing around in class and girls but, under the boys’ teenage hedonism, there is the constant uneasiness felt by Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian Territories. When beautiful activist Maysaa’ (Sereen Khass) joins his class, Tamer (Mahmoud Bakri) adopts an interest in politics. On Israel’s national day – commemorated by Palestinians as the Nakba, or catastrophe – Maysaa’ and her fellow campaigners plan to replace the Israeli flag flying over the school with the Palestinian flag, a symbolic act of resistance reminding everyone of the history they are expected to forget. As Nakba day approaches, Tamer has to decide whether to join the struggle for real. In his first feature, Firas Khoury adroitly combines familiar elements of other coming-of-age movies with a more serious and subtle analysis of nationalism, propaganda, the symbolism of flags and, most importantly, what freedom really means. This film is supported by the Red Sea Fund.