After living in New York for many years, Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman returned to Israel. He used his position as half-insider and half-outsider to analyze the extent to which the Arab population of Israel is losing its national identity in a series of seemingly unconnected tableaux.

Disrupting quotidian monotony with bursts of surreal antics, Elia Suleiman’s inventive feature debut speaks to the fragmented existence of modern-day Palestinians. Exquisitely executed, the Tati-esque sight gags emerge as a form of political resistance—and an absurdist rendering of statelessness.