Mayor

“Local governance is the most beautiful field of work in our country,” says two-term Christian Mayor of Ramallah, Musa Hadid. Between school visits, city rebranding meetings, and sewage cleanup, Mayor Musa works tirelessly to bring basic municipal services to his city, while facing dispiriting news that Trump has declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and plans to relocate the embassy. At a moment of intense upheaval, filmmaker David Osit intimately and lovingly captures a man who is simply fighting for dignity for himself and the Palestinian people.

“Ramallah is only 10 miles north of Jerusalem, but for Palestinians living under occupation, the distance feels much longer. In Mayor, a thrilling and perceptive new documentary from director David Osit, the normalcy of everyday life faces the constant threat of disruption. That’s the conundrum facing Musa Hadid, the overworked protagonist at the center of an operatic vérité drama that often dips into bureaucratic black comedy and unnerving suspense, as Hadid’s exasperated attempts to keep the peace dissolve into a constant swirl of frustration.” –Eric Kohn, IndieWire