Pomegranates and Myrrh

Al Mor wa Al Rumman | Palestine

Director: Najwa Najjar
Production company: Ustura Films

Set in Ramallah this decade, free-spirited dancer Kamar, finds herself the wife of a prisoner, when her husband Zaid is jailed. Struggling with the grief of separation, the ongoing effects of the repressive occupation, Kamar also has to face society’s moral issues with dance. Matters are complicated when a new dance instructor, Kais, returns to the studio after many years in Lebanon and takes a special interest in Kamar. Sparks fly between Kamar and Kais resulting in more than a passionate, emotional dance for both of them. Matters become even more complicated when Zaid’s sentence is extended.

The constant interference of the external conflict – her husband’s arrest, the squatters on her land, and the soldiers filling the streets – is an unavoidable aspect of Kamar’s existence but one that she will not deter her. Najjar’s intimate storytelling and Yasmine Al Massri’s sensitive portrayal of Kamar create a film that addresses honestly the way a woman might face the realities of life in modern-day Palestine while refusing to be defined by them.

Director Biography

Palestinian-born writer and director Najwa Najjar studied in Washington, United States and was offered to join an American film production house. Instead Najjar went home to live in Palestine, where she founded the film production house Ustura. Pomegranates and Myrrh, her feature debut, won the Amiens Scriptwriting Award and participated in the Sundance Scriptwriting Lab and the Mediterranean Films Crossing Borders Cannes workshop. Pomegranates and Myrrh will be screened at the Sundance Film Festival 2009.

“Here the problem isn’t about talent but about organising the work. (…) I try hard to work with the local people. It would be too easy to get technicians from London or Paris. I want to work with young Palestinians, and if their preparation isn’t precise they make up for it with their big hearts.”
Najwa Najjar