Toreno, 25 Nov. (askanews) – Presented Out of Competition at the Torino Film Festival, The Teacher by British-Palestinian director Farah Nabulsi, from 11 December in Italian cinemas. The film, already presented in Toronto, is his first feature film after the short “The Present”, winner of numerous awards and nominated for an Oscar. A very current film because Nabulsi, born and raised in London, to Palestinian parentshe felt the call of the land and after traveling and seeing that reality with his own eyes, he wanted to tell it in his films. “I wanted – he said in Turin – to create a human contact with Palestine”.
Palestine at the Turin Film Festival, director Farah Nabulsi presents the film The Teacher
The master of the title is a teacher who lives in the West Bankplayed by a very good Saleh Bakri, (already directed in “The Present”), with a past of political militancy, who does everything to guide, be a mentor to one of his students, with the violence of the settlers in the background.
“I have been to Palestine and seen with my own eyes the oppression, the injusticeI feel very connected on an identity and human level to Palestine. And with this film I was very involved, spending so much time on the ground, in Palestine with Palestinians experiencing firsthand what happens there, whether it’s children being taken to military prisons, home demolitions, settler violence and vandalism. And so I felt compelled to lend my artistic expression to these stories and these experiences and to share them.”
An emotional journey into the lives of Palestinians before the genocide
A film shot before October 7th and the war in Gaza. “After two years of genocide, people are definitely in an amplified emotional state – said the director – I think they will welcome the film with even more passion, even more compassion and empathy. I want to take the audience on this kind of emotional journey into the lives and experiences of these characters, but I hope that now the audience can understand it even better.”
In the film the protagonist is in a certain way paralleled with an American in search of his son, an Israeli soldier captured by a Palestinian group, who is then released in exchange for the liberation of thousands of Palestinians. “I felt a strong imbalance for these two lives”, commented Nabulsi, “the value of one life compared to others and this inspired me to write and was an interesting aspect to explore”.
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