Origin: Belgium Denmark | Fiction | Director: Yousry Nasrallah | 278 minutes

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The Gate of Sun

Part I – The Departure. 135 minutes.
– 30 minutes break –
Part II – The Return. 143 minutes.

An adaptation of Elias Khoury’s internationally acclaimed novel Bab el Shams or Gate of the Sun, this poignant epic chronicles the odyssey of Palestinians over a span of 50 years. Caught between wars, waves of displacement, and the precariousness of life in refugee camps, solace is cultivated in love, resistance, enduring memories, the power of hope, and the dreams of return. Khalil (Basel Khayyat), a physician tries to bring Yunus, a Palestinian patriot and ex-fighter, who lies in coma, back to life; not through medicine but by the virtue of remembering and telling stories. The stories of Yunus juxtapose both the life trajectories of Khalil and himself, weaving their past into their present, tracking down the destiny of a lost homeland and contemplating the uncertain futures of a deferred nationhood. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004 and is screened for the first time in Germany in its two-part 4K version at ALFILM, restored last year by the Locarno Film Festival and included in the official selection of its 76th edition. Considered a masterpiece of Arab cinema, The Gate of Sun has been praised by Giona A. Nazzaro, the artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, as “a key film of contemporary cinema […] a political and lyrical work in which the director injects his irrepressible storytelling talent, observing with clarity the contradictions and sorrows of an endless conflict.”

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