A winningly satiric comedy that’s as tenderhearted as it is sly...
Date/Time: Oct 12 2017, 4:00 pm to 5:20 pm
Vancouver, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts | Event calendarCost: $15.00
Find tickets: here
In 2017, VIFF continues to expand the frame to create multi-experiential streams that include some of the best cinema from around the world fused with related talks and events in a unique Film+ model. VIFF audiences and creators have a chance to discover, discuss and connect more at one of North America's most accessible festivals, in one of the most beautiful cities on the planet.
With more than 300 films from 73 countries, VIFF 2016 audiences were treated to narratives and documentaries that entertained, informed, inspired and left viewers in awe of the filmmaking talent that exists here in Canada and from creators around the world. Look here for a list of
2016 award-winners. We can't wait to see what the 2017 Festival line-up!
Holy Air
Hawa Moqadda
Panorama | Contemporary World Cinema
A droll, melancholic and world-weary undercurrent runs throughout this alternately funny and tender satire about a subject you rarely see onscreen: the lives of modern Arab Christians in Israel. Adam (writer-director Shady Srour), a glum, unsuccessful 40-ish Arab-Christian businessman, living in Nazareth with his wife and reluctantly looking forward to the birth of his first child, decides to bottle the "holy air" from Mount Precipice and sell it to tourists. But there are a lot of people and circumstances—from gangsters demanding protection money and the priest who controls the market on Christian trinkets to his dying father—standing in his way… Reminiscent of the work of Elia Suleiman (even down to the stoic performing style of the bearded Srour) and peppered with inspired visual gags, Holy Air captures the spirit of a very confusing place, where Muslim, Jew and Christian are constantly either at odds with one another or competing for the tourist dollar…
"A winningly satiric comedy that’s as tenderhearted as it is sly… Writer-director Shady Srour has a soulful sad-sack quality as his film’s central character, Adam, a Christian Arab Israeli who’s not quite ready for fatherhood or for the painful fading of his ailing father… The humour in Holy Air is inseparable from its poignancy, and every element of the film expresses that interconnection, from the performances to the spirited, melancholy-laced score by Habib Shehadeh Hanna."—Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter
Thursday, October 12, 2017 at 4:00 PM
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The Vancouver International Film Festival 2017 Events