Director: Farah Nabulsi

Stars: Saleh Bakri, Imogen Poots, Muhammad Abed Elrahman, Mahmoud Bakri

Given the prescience of the subject matter, this is a disappointingly middlebrow Palestine-set drama from British-Palestinian writer-director Farah Nabulsi. ‘The Blue Kaftan’s’ Saleh Bakri is Basem an English teacher in occupied Palestine. Two of his pupils are neighbours in his hometown, the wily and cynical Yacoub (Mahmoud Bakri) who has just been released from detention for a minor incident, and younger brother Adam (El Rahman). Basem preaches tolerance in class and stresses the importance of learning to his pupils, but as trips to the local market evidence, Basem still maintains ties with the resistance. Also at his school is Lisa (Poots), an idealistic if naïve Londoner who is volunteering as a counsellor and with whom he commences a relationship. Then a tragic incident forces Basem to question his priorities. There is potentially interesting material here, the knotty compromises the character’s must make under an occupation and how personal lives and simple pleasures must be set aside in challenging circumstances, but the script feels perfunctory and the narrative inert, while the plotting occasionally feels contrived. Still, leads Bakri and Poots do good work investing their sketchily written characters with a degree of depth.

David Willoughby

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