Wednesday December 8th  2021

Israel/Palestine  2019   97 minutes
Director: Sameh Zoabi
Starring: Yaniv Biton, Kais Nashef, Lubna Azabi

‘Tel Aviv on Fire’ is the title of a popular TV show, produced in an Arabic studio in Ramallah but enjoyed by both Israelis and Palestinians. Salam, originally hired by the studio to advise on local dialects, finds himself responsible for the eagerly awaited twists and turns of the show’s plots. Having to cross the border to get to work, he gets involved with the commander of the border post, who has his own ideas on how the show should proceed. These clash with the ideas of the TV bosses, and the hapless Salam is caught in the cross-fire. To make a comedy out of the tensions in that part of the world might seem an impossible task, but the filmmakers have succeeded brilliantly.