Muhi – Generally Temporary
Description
Muhammad (aka Muhi) is a cherubic Palestinian toddler with an infectious laugh and a life-threatening immune disorder. With inadequate medical care available to him at home in Gaza, Muhi was transported to an Israeli hospital as a baby for emergency treatment that included amputation of all his limbs. He has lived in that hospital ever since; running gleefully through its corridors in his prosthetics, it is the only home he’s ever known. But while the hospital is able to keep Muhi alive and well, it also keeps him and his devoted grandfather, Abu Naim, in a bizarre state of limbo. In Gaza, says his mother, “The boy will die.” In Israel, Abu Naim is denied a visa or work permit. Stuck on either side of a fiercely guarded checkpoint, their family is indefinitely torn apart. As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rages around them, the no man’s land of the hospital walls that Muhi and his grandfather inhabit is a strange source of both medical salvation and uncomfortable contradictions, where Muhi bounces between Hebrew and Arabic, the Torah and the Koran. With both empathy and precision, Jerusalem-based journalists Rina Castelnuovo-Hollander and Tamir Elterman place one family’s unique story within the crucible of the relentless Mideast strife that impacts everyone in its orbit. –Joanne Parsont
Rina Castelnuovo-Hollander is an award-winning Israeli photographer. She studied arts at the Academia de Belle Arti in Rome and has been a contract photographer for The New York Times for 23 years, covering war, peace, and crisis in Israel.
Berkeley-born Tamir Elterman is an American documentarian and video journalist. He is a video contributor to The New York Times Jerusalem, where he covers conflict, religion, and culture. In 2014, he directed a documentary about East African asylum seekers for Al Jazeera America. He is a graduate of Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with a Masters of Science in broadcast journalism.
Film Details
Language Hebrew, Arabic
Year 2017
Premiere World
Runtime 87
Country Israel, Germany
Director Rina Castelnuovo-Hollander, Tamir Elterman
Producer Hilla Medalia, Jürgen Kleinig
Editor Joëlle Alexis
Cinematographer Avner Shahaf, Oded Kirma, Tamir Elterman, Rina Castelnuovo-Hollander
Music Ran Bagno