Films: Laila's Birthday

Laila's Birthday
Eid milad Laila

Palestine, 2008, 72 Minute Running Time
Additional Countries: Tunisia, The Netherlands
Genre/Subjects: Drama, Family Issues, Foreign, Social Issues
Program: Contemporary World Cinema
Language: Arabic English Subtitles

DIRECTOR: Rashid Masharawi
Producer: Mohamed Habib Attia, Wouter Barendrecht, Rashid Masharawi, Peter van Vogelpoel, Michael J. Werner
Editor: Pascal Chavance
Screenwriter: Rashid Masharawi
Cinematographer: Tarek ben Abdallah, Nestor Sanz
Principal Cast: Mohamed Bakri, Areen Omari, Nour Zoubi

Born in Gaza, director Rashid Masharawi knows Ramallah – the setting of his darkly absurd comedy Laila’s Birthday – intimately. He shows off the simultaneous beauty and chaos of the occupied city as his principled protagonist, ex-judge Abu Laila, traverses it in his brother-in-law’s taxicab. 

Abu awakens on his daughter Laila’s seventh birthday to the sound of breaking glass – a foreshadowing of the day to come. Before takes off in the cab, which he is driving until he is able to convince the ineffective Ministry of Justice to give him back his position on the bench, his wife reminds him to pick up a cake and gift. Throughout the day, Abu’s fares test his patience and his desire for law and order. One woman takes him on a morbid trip to both the hospital and the cemetery to visit her deceased husband. An ex-prisoner leaves his cell phone in Abu’s cab and begins a calling tirade to get it back. Armed passengers ask for a ride to the checkpoints. The requests get more and more unreasonable.

When his cab needs emergency repairs, Abu finds a mechanic as well as a bakery for Laila’s cake – but a missile hits the neighborhood and his vehicle is seized for use as a makeshift ambulance. At this point, Abu’s frustrations boil over. Railing at the inhumanity of the occupation, he returns home empty-handed – but finds that his passengers have inadvertently provided for Laila for him.

Of his many films, Masharawi says, “What I have been trying to do is to create cinema out of the Palestinian situation. I feel [film] can offer a mirror … [to reflect] Palestinian life in the last 20 years.”

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