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A Bottle in the Gaza Sea

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A Bottle in the Gaza Sea
Film poster
Directed byThierry Binisti
Written byThierry Binisti, Valérie Zenatti
Produced byTS Productions
France 3 Cinéma
EMA Films (Canada)
Lama Films (Israel)
StarringAgathe Bonitzer
Mahmoud Shalaby
Hiam Abbass
CinematographyLaurent Brunet
Edited byJean-Paul Husson
Music byBenoît Charest
Distributed byRoissy Films
Release dates
  • October 8, 2011 (2011-10-08) (Pusan International Film Festival)
  • February 8, 2012 (2012-02-08) (France)
  • March 23, 2012 (2012-03-23) (Canada)
Running time
100 minutes
CountriesFrance
Canada
Israel
LanguagesHebrew
Arabic
French
Budget€2,000,000 (estimated)

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea (French: Une bouteille à la mer, Quebec French: Une bouteille dans la mer de Gaza) is a 2011 drama directed by Thierry Binisti. The film, an international co-production shot in French, Hebrew and Arabic, is based on the French young adult novel Une bouteille dans la mer de Gaza by Valérie Zenatti, originally published in 2005 and adapted for the screen by Zenatti and Binisti. Zenatti taught Agathe Bonitzer Hebrew in preparation for starring in the film.[1]

Plot

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Tal (Agathe Bonitzer) is the 17-year-old daughter of recent French immigrants to Israel who live in Jerusalem. Following a bomb attack on a local café, she throws a bottle into the sea near Gaza with a message asking for an explanation. Naïm (Mahmoud Shalaby), a sensitive but aimless 20-year-old Palestinian living in Gaza, discovers the bottle and tries to answer Tal's question by initiating an email correspondence. Their mutual suspicion soon develops into a tender friendship.

About the film

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The film is based on the bestselling book by Valérie Zenatti, a Jewish woman who immigrated to Israel from France at age 13 and returned to France after completing her military service. Since filming in Gaza was not possible, the Gaza portions of the film were shot in Jisr az-Zarqa village in Qalansawe.

References

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  1. ^ "A Bottle In The Gaza Sea." Archived 2016-05-18 at the Wayback Machine Film Movement. 1 June 2016.
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