The Syrian Bride

“Featuring a large cast of characters drawn with uncommon depth and sympathy…The Syrian Bride manages the rare feat of blending the personal and the political in pitch-perfect fashion.” — The Hollywood Reporter

“Eran Riklis’ remarkable film explores the combined effects Middle Eastern geopolitics and age-old repressive conventions have on a 25-year-old bride.” — TV Guide

Part of the "Finest in World Cinema Series," The Syrian Bride centers on Mona, whose wedding day will be the saddest day of her life. Once she crosses the border between Israel and Syria to marry Tallel, a Syrian TV Star she has never met, she will never be able to go back to her family in Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. As the film progresses, the tensions and stresses of this one family and their social situation serve as a microcosm of the larger identity and political crisis facing the Druze of the occupied Golan and, beyond that, the wider Middle East. Ethnic favoritism, political unrest, sexual repression and patriarchal domination are all thrown into sharp relief in the family’s internal dynamics.

Director Eran Rikils, an Israeli Jew, explores the complex story of women torn between families, tradition and borders with a cast of mostly Palestinian-Israelis, including the screenwriter. With more than 15 awards worldwide, the film crisscrosses the boundary between subversive optimism and painful pessimism, without ever resolving the contradiction.

The film — in English, Arabic and Hebrew, with English subtitles — is 98 minutes long, and is not rated.