It Must Be Heaven

Synopsis

Elia Suleiman writes, directs and takes centre stage in this minimalist comedy in which he leaves Palestine but finds echoes of it wherever he goes. Under the pretext of seeking funding for a film, this imperturbable director—a character with streaks of Keaton and Tati—travels to Paris and New York to discover that states of exception, police states and violence are now commonplace across the world.

Drenched in absurd humour, this sharp reflection on the loss of territory and identity is also a biting criticism of the inextricable situation in Palestine.

Biography and Films

Elia Suleiman (Nazaret, Israel, 1960) is a self-taught filmmaker who lived in New York between 1981 and 1993, after a brief spell in London. His first two shorts from this time, Introduction to the End of an Argument and Homage by Assassination, won a clutch of awards. In 1994 he moved to Jerusalem, where he accepted an invitation by the European Commission to set up a Film and Audiovisual Department at Birzeit University. His first feature, Chronicle of a Disappearance, won Best First Film at the 1996 Venice Film Festival. In 2002 Divine Intervention won Best Foreign Film at the European Film Awards in Rome and the Jury Prize at the Cannes, where he soon became a festival regular. His following feature, The Time That Remains, competed at Cannes in 2009, and in 2012 his short film Diario de un principiante was included in the anthology film 7 días en La Habana, which competed in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes. In 2019 It Must Be Heaven, his latest film to date, won the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes, where it also  and also received a Special Mention.