Salma Zidane (Hiam Abbass), a 45 years old
widow from a small Palestinian village in the West bank,
finds herself at war with the Israeli Minister of Defense (Doron
Tavory) who built his house on the green line border between
Israel and the occupied Territories on the edge of Salma’s
lemon grove. soon enough the Israeli security forces claim
that the grove is a threat to the safety of the minister and
issue orders to uproot the lemon trees. salma, whose son is
in America and daughters live far away from her, decides to
fight for her trees.
She embarks on a legal journey all the way up to the Israeli
Supreme Court. Salma is joined by a young Palestinian
lawyer, Ziad Daud (Ali Suliman), who fights against a wall
of clever military lawyers who have the backing of the
government. Ziad, 34, divorced from a Russian woman he met
while attending law school in Moscow, falls in love with
Salma. Their love affair is a complicated and dangerous one
as Palestinian widows are not free to do whatever they like,
certainly not fall in love, certainly not with younger men…
Salma realizes that she has inner strengths that allow her
to continue her lonely quest, despite the pressures put on
her from both sides – Israeli and Palestinian. Salma is
fighting for trees that were planted by her father over 50
years ago, trees that have absorbed blood, sweat and tears
like the whole region. She will not let them be cut down
just to satisfy absurd security requirements.
On the other side of the grove, Mira Navon (Rona Lipaz-Michael),
the Minister’s wife, is also undergoing a major change in
her life. After fulfilling her duties for so many years, and
despite the new house and her husband’s new and powerful
job, she feels unhappy. The clock is ticking away and there
must be more to life than her share so far. The events
around her invisible new neighbor gradually raise her
awareness of her husband’s approach to the whole affair, and
she finds herself defying what is expected of her. A bond is
created between the two women, each of them discovering a
new life ahead of them, each in her own territory, across
the deep border between them.
© IFC Films. All
rights reserved
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