1967. The world is alive and ripe with possibility--new music, style, hope. But in Jordan, thousands of refugees from Palestine are held waiting for their right to return to their homeland. Amidst this, a young boy yearns to be reunited with his father. Restlessly cooped up in the refugee camp, he secretly sets out on his own, and along the way, attaches himself to a group of young freedom fighters who take him under their wing. Together, they embark on a journey of adventure, driven by an unshakable resolve to be free.
Following on the acclaimed
Salt of this Sea, writer and director Annemarie Jacir proves with
When I Saw You that she has become a leader in Palestinian contemporary cinema. This heartfelt and moving film, Palestine's entry for the 2013 Academy Awards, is suffused with a distinct sense of this revolutionary time and place.
World Premiere, Toronto Film Festival 2012
Forum, Berlin Film Festival 2013
Opening Film, Birds Eye view Film Festival, London 2013
NETPAC award for Best Asian Film at the Berlin International Film Festival
Winner Audience Award Amiens Int. Film Festival
Winner SIGNIS Award for Best Film Amiens Int. Film Festival
Nomination Best Children's Film - ASIAN PACIFIC SCREEN AWARDS
Palestine’s 2013 OSCAR ENTRY for Foreign Language Film
Nomination YOUNG ARTIST AWARD for Leading Performance in Foreign Film
Winner Special Jury Prize - Oran Festival of Arab Cinema
Winner - Tunisian Film Critics Don Quixote Award – Carthage Int. Film Festival
Winner Jury Prize - Cairo Int. Film Festival
Best Arab Film - Abu Dhabi Film Festival
Best Picture World Cinema - Phoenix International Film Festival
Annemarie Jacir Director
Filmography Selected
Annemarie Jacir is a filmmaker and screenwriter living in Jordan. Named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Cinema, several of her films have premiered in Official Selections at the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals. Her first feature film, Salt of this Sea, won numerous awards and was Palestine’s Official Oscar Entry for Best Foreign Language Film. It was also the first feature film directed by a Palestinian woman.
Jacir lived in Saudi Arabia until the age of sixteen, moving between Bethlehem and Riyadh. She then studied in the United States. She began working in the theatre, first in set design and then writing and directing plays. Her career in cinema began as an assistant on various sets. She then worked as an editor and camerawoman before attending Columbia University in New York to obtain a MFA degree in Film.
Jacir co-founded Philistine Films, an independent production company, focusing on productions related to the Arab world.
She is the co-founder and chief curator of the ground-breaking Dreams of a Nation, a project dedicated to the conservation and promotion of Palestinian cinema. In 2003, she organized and curated the largest traveling film festival in Palestine, which included the screening, for the first time on Palestinian soil, of archival Palestinian films. She has taught at Columbia University, Bethlehem University, and Birzeit University as well as in refugee camps in Palestine, Lebanon and currently in Jordan. She is a founding member of the Palestinian Filmmakers’ Collective, based in Palestine.
When I Saw You is her second feature film.
FEATURE FILMS
When I Saw You (2012, 93 min)
Salt of this Sea (2008, 104 min, Color, 35mm)
SHORTS
Like Twenty Impossibles (2003, 17 min, Color, 35mm)
Sound of the Street (2006, 3 min, Color, DV)
An Explanation : (and then Burn the Ashes) (2005, 6 min, Color, 16mm)
A Few Crumbs for the Birds (2005, 26 min, Color, DV)
Until When (2004, 76 min, Color, DV)
Palestine is Waiting (2001, 10 min, Video)
The Satellite Shooters (2001, 16 min, Color, 16mm)
Two Hundred Years of American Ideology (2000, 12 min, Color, Video)
A Revolutionary Tale (2000, 9 min, Color, Video)
A Post-Oslo History (1998, 8 min, Color, Video)
Interview (1994, 4 min. Color, Video)
"warm, supple and heartfelt"
Peter Bradshaw,
The Guardian★★★★
"When I Saw You, like the remarkable work of its lead actors, is a little gem"
Tom Birchenough, The Artsdesk
★★★★
"This impressive second feature film..is a spirited account of an enforced coming of age"Wendy Ide, The Times
"When I Saw You is Jacir's second feature. Like 2008's Salt of this Sea – the first feature directed by a Palestinian woman – it was her country's official entry at the Oscars. She's in the pioneering habit: at 29 she became the first Arab to have a short at Cannes. Her work bears comparison to that of her contemporaries in Iran – deceptively casual, studied cinematography, realistic performances and an eagerness to push the dramatic envelope."
Nicholas Blincoe, The Guardian
★★★★
"In keeping with many recent Arabic films – think Saudi Arabia’s Wadjada and Iran’sOffside – writer-director Annemarie Jacir cunningly buries political critique in a warm-hearted, all-ages period piece. The performances are excellent, particularly from Blal and young Asfa, who’s cheeky, open-mouthed curiosity allows us to love Tarek, even on his very worst behaviour."
Tara Brady, The Irish Times
★★★★
"Annemarie Jacir's simple, laid-back and often very charming film thankfully goes easy on the saccharine, instead opting for a spare, observational mode that regularly results in dry comedy and natural, rural poetics."
David Jenkins, Little White Lies
"When I Saw You is cinematic poetry, the perfect blend of stunning cinematography, humanly portrayed characters and a story that hits you with an immediate gut reaction, yet colors your dreams and inhabits your thoughts for days to come. Beautiful, groundbreaking and deeply, deeply moving."
“A touching, beautiful masterpiece of a film, an ode to the displaced the world over and to any of us who have ever lived somewhere other than our own birth country, yearning for home."
HUFFINGTON POST
Read full review
"Blal plays the mother as a hardy, stricken woman whose stores of love finally outweigh her willingness to fight; the performance, like Jacir's direction, is matter-of-fact yet superbly detailed, each action suggestive of a wealth of swallowed-back feeling. As Tarek, Asfa is also extraordinary, albeit in a much rawer way, as if everything has been scraped from the kid but want...another first-rate film from a Middle East rich with them."
Alan Scherstuhl, The Village Voice
"With precious little politics and the Israelis as invisible as Tarek’s homeland, “When I Saw You” is a soft-centered child’s-eye view of alienation, toughened by fine acting (Saleh Bakri shines as a fighter drawn to Ghaydaa) and Hélène Louvart’s full-bodied photography."
Jeanette Catsoulisjan, The New York Times
"One of the best works to come out of the current explosion in filmmaking in the Middle East."
"Reminiscent of Steven Soderbergh's 'Che', and a defiant message about the refusal to give up hope of a return home."
INDIEWIRE
"If pressed to describe the film in one word, that word would be 'hopeful.'"
Zsarlene B. Chua, Business World
"A poetic tour de force!"
TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
"One of the most distinctive films from the Arab world in recent years."
THE TORONTO STAR
"Jacir humanizes a people many have been taught to despise as villains. She gives Palestinians a voice in their quest—whether right or wrong—to return to the lives they once led. With a couple of gorgeous campfire songs and more even subtler details, she exposes her audience to a culture not alike our own by stripping away the present, warped message of destruction that’s replaced it in the world’s consciousness. Tarek like all children of war never wanted the fight; it was brought to him when the only world he ever knew was irrevocably shattered. His hasty, misguided quest for normalcy reminds his brethren why they fight while showing usoutsiders how powerful the human spirit is and always will be despite circumstances trying their hardest to prevent it."
FILM STAGE REVIEW
“The film is riddled with humour, which lightens an incredibly dire situation – in a film that emanates hope, not victimhood.”
Amelia Smith, MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
