IT MUST BE HEAVEN

Elia Suleiman plays himself, as in all his films: a silent observer in a hat who watches his neighbours in Nazareth and then sets off to find a new home elsewhere. In Paris he wants to pitch a film project, in New York too, and everywhere he meets the same experience – the police, the military, the small absurdities of power are at home everywhere, and Palestine travels with him. The question of where the place might be that one could call home is left hanging. “It Must Be Heaven” (Palestine, 2019) by Elia Suleiman is a sequence of comic vignettes that set everyday poetry and everyday violence side by side.

Suleiman works almost without dialogue and with a physical comedy reminiscent of Jacques Tati and Buster Keaton; the punchlines arise from patience, repetition and a precise eye for the choreography of everyday life. In competition at the Cannes Film Festival 2019, the film received a Special Mention from the jury and the FIPRESCI Prize. “It Must Be Heaven” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2019.

Shown at the 2019 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2019 · Film Archive