Chronicle of a Disappearance

The spiritual effect of occupation and instability on the Palestinian people is investigated.

Series
PBS Plus Presentation
Premiere Date
August 1, 1998
Length
90 minutes
Funding Initiative
Open Call
  • Award laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    1996 Seattle International Film Festival-New Director's Showcase Special Jury Prize
  • Award laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    1996 Venice Film Festival-Best First Feature
  • Award laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    1996 Festival of Three Continents-Silver Prize
    • Producer

    Elia Suleiman

    Elia Suleiman is a Palestinian-Israeli film director and actor. He is best known for the 2002 film Divine Intervention, a modern tragic comedy on living under occupation in the Palestinian territories, which won the Jury Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. Between 1982 and 1993, Suleiman lived in New York City, where he directed two short films: Introduction to the End of an Argument… Show more and Homage by Assassination, which won numerous awards. In 1996, Suleiman directed Chronicle of a Disappearance, his first feature film. It won the Best First Film Prize at the 1996 Venice Film Festival. In 2002, Suleiman’s second feature film, Divine Intervention, subtitled A Chronicle of Love and Pain, won the Jury Prize at the Festival de Cannes and the International Critics (FIPRESCI) Prize, also receiving the Best Foreign Film Prize at the European Awards in Rome. Suleiman was part of the jury for the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Show less

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    The Film

    Filmmaker Elia Suleiman was born in Nazareth in 1960, well after the establishment of the state of Israel in historic Palestine. After 12 years in New York, he returned to the land of his birth to find his roots. But his journey became a search for roots among an uprooted culture; the images strung together like memories in an attempt to weave a whole out of elements that have been blasted apart. A comic drama, Chronicle of a Disappearance is a personal meditation on the spiritual effect of occupation and instability on the Palestinian people, their psyche and their identity.

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