Rana's Wedding (2002)

Official Selection! - 2002 Cannes Film Festival
Winner! - Nestor Almendros Prize, 2003 Human Rights Watch Film Festival
Winner! - Best Actress, Clara Khoury, Marrakech Film Festival

Shooting on location in East Jerusalem and Ramallah, Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad (Academy Award® nominee, Paradise Now) offers a romantic and compelling portrait of love under occupation and everyday life turned upside down. When Rana (Clara Khoury) is faced with an ultimatum - choose a husband from a list of eligible, respectable men or leave for Egypt - she goes searching for a lover of her own choosing. Moving across checkpoints to the West Bank, finding a wedding dress in a war zone, and settling family differences all in just ten hours, Rana finds. . . in Jerusalem, love has many roadblocks.

In Arabic with English Subtitles

DVD Features:

New transfer - remastered audio and video

Original Theatrical Trailer

Hany Abu-Assad Biography

Clara Khoury Biography

The hectic ordeal of a wedding

PREPARING FOR A wedding is a hectic ordeal anywhere in the world. In the film "Rana's Wedding," however, the bride's situation is even more complicated than most. She awakes from her bed in East Jerusalem with an ultimatum from her father to either marry one of the up-and-coming eligible bachelors who have asked for her hand from a list he has given her, or accompanying him to Egypt--and he wants her decision by four that afternoon. But Rana has other ideas. She sets out to find her true love, Khalil, a struggling theater company director in near-by Ramallah, persuade him to propose, find the registrar, have her father accept her beloved and then marry--all by the 4 p.m. deadline. Because her life is constrained at every turn by the Israeli military occupation, Rana's task is a journey of epic proportion.
Palestinian novelist Liana Badr wrote the screenplay, along with Ihab Lamey, based on her own trials and tribulations in order to marry the Palestinian politician Yasser Abd Rabbih. The film's Palestinian director, Hany Abu-Assad, whose later "Paradise Now" was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign film, carefully shows us the daily life of those living under occupation. As they watch a Palestinian home being demolished by an Israeli bulldozer, Rana tells a friend, "They are destroying homes as I am trying to build one."
Through it all Rana (played with quiet resolve by Palestinian Clara Khoury) is determined to succeed. Even though at times she is disappointed and despairing, Rana presses on--not unlike the people of Palestine.
July 10, 2008

I felt I was witnessing the events*

When the movie first started I thought it would be another young lady trying to run away from home to marry her no good lover. However, the plot was slightly different and very touching. I won't say too much about it but it feels like you're going through the same emotions as Rana* (Clara Khoury). Really great film, it capture todays events but doesn't lose sight of what the film is REALLY about. May 22, 2008

Wonderful film! Clara Khoury's perfomace is outstanding!

This jewel of film is about planning a whirlwind wedding amid the realities of the life for Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Though the political issues are ever present, it does an excellent job of keeping focused on the story. I felt as if I were seeing Rana's experiences on her wedding day, through her eyes. April 5, 2008

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