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The Boston Palestine Film Festival runs with a mix of in-person and online availability from October 17 through October 26. Click here for the schedule and ticket info, and watch the site for Joshua Polanski’s continuing coverage.

“Should I wait for Palestine to be free to get a divorce?”

The women of Laila Abbas’s feature debut share a financially comfortable lifestyle when compared to most of the characters in any given Palestinian-focused film festival. They have large flatscreen televisions in their living room, toys on the floor, and a house spacious enough that people don’t trip over each other. Their inconveniences are just like the inconveniences in the lives of women all over the world: the men around them and the ones running the country. 

Sisters Mariam (Clara Khoury) and Noura (Yasmine Al Massri) concoct a scheme when their dad dies to cut “his highness,” their distant brother who abandoned them for America and ignores their calls, out of the inheritance that the law determines to leave him. Noura dreams of opening a beauty shop in North America and Mariam sees the money as a divorce kickstart package. Knowing it’s what he would have wanted anyhow makes them feel better about the identity fraud and banking shenanigans they pull off to abscond with the money. 

Continue reading at the Boston Hassle.