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BERLINALE 2013 Panorama / France / Canada

Inch’Allah investigates a closed conflict

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- The French-Canadian co-production Inch’Allah, from Québec director Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, had its European premiere in the Berlinale's Panorama

The film Inch’Allah [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
from director Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette retraces the difficult back-and-forth of a young female doctor from Québec, Chloé (Evelyne Brochu, in a fearless performance), who lives in Israel but who works in a UN hospital in Palestine and who has to pass trough a checkpoint dividing the two territories every day.

A friend of hers from Israel (Israeli singer-actress Sivan Levy) lives in the same building with her parents and also works as a soldier at the checkpoint, thus giving Chloé an Israeli point of view on the events and difficult day-to-day realities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
 
The Arab point of view is provided by her friendship with one of her patients, the pregnant Rand (French actress Sabrina Ouazani, The Source [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
), whose brother (Joe Sweid, from The Bubble) also likes Chloé.
 
The film, shot with a mostly handheld camera by the director’s father Philippe Lavalette, which lends an urgency and immediacy to the proceedings, goes back and forth as Chloé tries to not only do her work and occupy her spare hours and starts to realize that it’s almost impossible not to take sides in the conflict.
 
“It’s not your conflict,” says one of the characters, while another seems to suggest that not choosing a side means she’s not involved in what is going on around her. Though it’s clearly unethical for a doctor to take sides, the film suggests it is almost impossible not to when confronted with the local day-to-day realities on both sides.
 
The film, a European premiere, was presented in Berlin as part of the Panorama section, the same section that also showcased the director’s 2007 film The Fight.
 
Inch’Allah will be released in France, a co-producing country via the input of ID Unlimited, at the start of April via Happiness Distribution, while Cinéart Netherlands will release it at the end of March.
 
The Canadian producer is Micro_Scope, the company behind such films as Monsieur Lazhar and Incendies, both films that also examined questions posed by the Arab world.
 
International sales are handled by Entertainment One Canada.

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