Movielogr
Laila's Birthday (2009)
Directed by Rashid Masharawi
Overview
“At eight o’clock, it’s Laila’s birthday, okay?” Palestinian judge turned cab driver Abu Laila’s wife reminds her husband. But on his young daughter’s birthday, like any day, Abu faces a nerve-wracking shift in a Ramallah yellow cab armed only with an ex-jurist’s misplaced pride, a father’s loyalty, and a sticker reminding passengers that smoking and carrying AK-47s are prohibited. Rather than address politics or document holy war heroics and villainy, Laila’s Birthday focuses on the toll that the unending Palestinian-Israeli conflict extracts from civilians clinging to both employment and a semblance of normal life amidst chaos and corruption, missile attacks and bursts of gunfire.
Length 71 minutes
Actors
Mohammed Bakri | Areen Omari | Nour Zoubi | Saleh Bakri | Walid Abed Elsalam | Mahmoud Awadd | Karma Zoubi | Khaled Horani | Hossine Nakhla | Ahmad Abu Sal'oum | Housam Abu A'ishe