Screwdriver

Monday, June 17, 2019

Expected to attend: Bassam Jarbawi (director), Yasmine Qaddumi (producer & actress), Shrihari Sathe (producer), and Sarah Saadoun (Researcher, Business and Human Rights, Human Rights Watch).


New York Premiere!

 

Young Ziad is the star of the Al-Amari Refugee Camp basketball team in the Ramallah outskirts of Palestine. When his best friend is shot and killed in crossfire, his teammates seek revenge, with results that will impact Ziad’s life forever. Shot entirely on location in the West Bank with a largely Palestinian crew, award-winning director Bassam Jarbawi’s debut feature follows Ziad as he returns home after 15 years in an Israeli prison. Hailed as a hero, with high expectations to settle back quickly into work and love, he is lost in a world he barely recognizes. Effectively capturing this unsettling inability to distinguish reality from hallucination and the haunting of memory, SCREWDRIVER immerses us in a distinctly Palestinian story while addressing the universal trauma of reintegration after incarceration.

 

“Solitary prisoners’ reliance on fantasy as a technique for survival captured my attention, and largely influenced the story of SCREWDRIVER. This stagnant ever-waiting hopelessness pervades [the] Palestinian psyche. The result is an inability to define self without occupier, to organize and feel life without restriction.” – Bassam Jarbawi, Director

 

Official Selection: Giornate Degli Autori; Toronto International Film Festival

In Arabic and Hebrew, fully subtitled in English.

Screening as part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2019.

  • Country Palestine/USA/Qatar
  • Language In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles.
  • Year 2018
  • Running Time 108 minutes
  • Distributor TBD
  • Director Bassam Jarbawi

IFC Center does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. In addition to the synopses, trailers and other links on our website, further information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDb and DoesTheDogDie.com as well as through general internet searches.