10th Annual Houston Palestine Film Festival: The Idol (Ya Tayr El Tayer) (at MFAH)

The 10th Annual Houston Palestine Film Festival, takes place over three weekends in May. The annual Houston Palestine Film Festival presents an honest and independent view of Palestine and its diaspora’s society, culture, and politics through the art of film.

For nine years, the Houston Palestine Film Festival has presented audiences with award-winning comedies, dramas, and documentaries from a rich and growing Palestinian cinema movement.

The landmark 10th edition may be the festival’s most ambitious.

From two-time Oscar nominee Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now; Omar) comes The Idol, based on Arab Idol winner and singing sensation Mohammed Assaf;  Amber Fares’ Speed Sisters is a raucously funny documentary about the Arab world’s first all-woman professional auto racing team. Mai Masri presents 3000 Nights, her debut feature-length drama. And from Palestinian provocateurs Arab and Tarzan Nasser comes Dégradé, set in a Gaza hair salon.

HPFF screenings continue at Rice Cinema on May 19-22 and 26-28.

The Idol
Ya Tayr El Tayer

Directed by Hany Abu-Assad
2015, in Arabic with English subtitles
UK/Palestine/Qatar/The Netherlands/United Arab Emirates
100 minutes

Acclaimed Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now; Omar) directs this biopic about Mohammad Assaf, the Gazan wedding singer who became a worldwide sensation after winning the Arab Idol competition in 2013.

Preceded by Ave Maria (directed by Basil Khalil, Palestine/France/Germany, 2015, 15 min., in Arabic English, and Hebrew with English subtitles), a comedy about an Israeli family who breaks down and disrupts the silence of five nuns living in the West Bank wilderness.