The Syrian Bride

Set in the hotly disputed Golan Heights area between Syria and Israel in 2000, Eran Riklis' remarkable film explores the combined effects Middle Eastern geopolitics and age-old repressive conventions have on a 25-year-old bride. Mona (RANA'S WEDDING's striking Clara Khoury) is one of many ethnic Druze who live in the Heights, and she's about to get married for the second time. Like most Druze marriages, it's been arranged by her family, but the fact that Mona's never met her husband-to-be, Syrian TV-star Tallel (Derar Sliman), is the least of her worries. Mona's father, pro-Syria dissident Hammed Salman (Makram J. Khoury), has spent time in an Israeli prison and is f...