FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE The Syrian Bride 

It is a deeply human conflict between two peoples who live in the same area and have suffered more than any other people in the world. In order to resolve it, it would require the ability to put oneself humanly into the suffering of the other. Here in Berlin Kreuzberg, however, people like to politicise and talk about Israel as an "apartheid state" etc. etc. This is ugly. That is ugly. We therefore recommend The Syrian Bride. We know Clara Khoury from "Rana's Wedding" (DVD1003) and in it she had a lot of trouble crossing the border from Ramallah to Jerusalem. In The Syrian Bride she is supposed to marry a Syrian soap opera star whom she never met. A romantic comedy without romance. The opening scene is correspondingly gloomy. Mona (Khoury) has defected to Syria and can never return to Israel. She will never see her family again. Mona gets her passport stamped in Israel and then goes over to the Syrian checkpoint. They in turn refuse to accept her passport. At least it has an Israeli stamp! Does the stamp have to be? It has to be. Without it, she cannot emigrate from Israel.