Avanti Popolo

In the aftermath of the Six-Day War, as the ceasefire is beginning, two Egyptian soldiers stranded in the Sinai Desert try to make their way back to safety across the Suez Canal. As they cautiously make their way west, the dangerously dehydrated Haled and Gassan stumble across a dead UN peacekeeper and help themselves to his cargo—two bottles of scotch. Instilled with liquid courage, they hitch a ride with a British journalist and a small platoon of Israeli soldiers who, they hope, can help them get home. In this absurd comedy—made all the more poignant by Salim Daw’s performance as Haled, a Shakespearean actor with aspirations to play Shylock—Rafi Bukai paints a humanistic, antiwar picture of both Israelis and Egyptians caught amidst the violent and ever-shifting winds of Middle Eastern politics. New York Premiere of the restoration.