Farha

The setting is Palestine, 1948, just as the international community has established the state of Israel as a permanent refuge for survivors of the Holocaust. This seemingly humanitarian creation is unfortunately a terrible geopolitical development for the people who have been living in Palestinian villages for years. FARHA (Karam Taher), an exuberant and bright young Palestinian girl, lives in one of those villages with Kamel, her father (Ashraf Barhom), a village leader. Based on a real-life girl named Radiyyeh who lived there, the fictional Farha is struggling with the fact that she doesn't want to be married off at 14 like the other village girls. She wants to attend a real school in the big city to complete her studies beyond the sixth grade. Her father is torn between community tradition and his devotion to his daughter, but lovingly grants her permission to enroll at school. Her excitement is short-lived as a military attack on the village immediately ensues. Her father had just met with armed local militants, volunteer fighters who rejected the United Nations scheme to divide the territory between Arabs and Jews. They pressed Kamel to fight the coming, as-yet-unnamed intruders. But Kamel is waiting for the military support promised by surrounding Arab nations and says he will defend his village as soon as that backup arrives. Shortly after, shooting starts and villagers are pressed to leave by uniformed Israeli forces. In the chaos, Kamel grabs a rifle and puts Farha in a car heading for safety. She refuses to depart, forcing him to lock her into a storage cave until he can return. More than 40 minutes of the film is devoted to her isolation in almost complete darkness. At the film's climax, from inside her dark enclosure, she witnesses the massacre of an innocent family at the hands of seemingly sadistic Israeli soldiers searching for weapons and militants.