PARADISE - GAN EDEN AVUD

Paradise (Fureidis in Arabic), a small fishing village overlooking the Mediterranean, is one of the few Arab communities that remained on the Israeli coastline after the 1948 war. It became politically and culturally isolated as Jewish settlements sprung up around it. Today, most of the men are unemployed, their wives work as housemaids in the neighbouring Jewish town and a sense of hopelessness draws young people to the Islamic Movement. As the director, Ebitsam Mara'ana, a Palestinian Israeli citizen, attempts to recreate the history of the village where she was born in 1975, she is met with a wall of "fear and silence".

The film follows Ebitsam on her search for her childhood hero, Suuad Genam, who was born in Paradise in 1957 and who dared to challenge the village's tendency for political inaction. She was a militant with a PLO group in the 1970's and was imprisoned and tortured by Israeli security forces. She now lives in the UK as a lawyer and is married to a British high school teacher.

Ebitsam hopes Suuad will be able to answer the fundamental questions that plague her about her identity. How can she combine her longing for freedom and modernity with her attachment to her home community which offers so little possibilities for women: "No going out after dark. Tight clothes aren't respectable. Sitting in a café is forbidden. Going abroad is not accepted..."?

But there is no easy answer to Ebitsam's questions. This strikingly honest and straightforward film offers a poignant look at issues of national identity and the place of women within traditional Arabic societies.

"I would like to feel like I still have my own paradise. But I find it difficult to talk about a connection to my homeland, which I no longer feel I have. ... When I am with Palestinians, they consider me to be Israeli. When I am with Israelis, it's the same story. In the end, neither side will accept me, and I remain stuck in the middle."