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ZAYTOUN

By Eran RIKLIS

ISRAEL CINEMA PROJECT - RABINOVICH FOUNDATION - as FIN

Drama - Completed 2012

ZAYTOUN is the story of the unlikely alliance between a twelve-year-old Palestinian refugee and an Israeli fighter pilot shot down over Beirut in 1982.

- Year of production
- 2012
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- FRANCE
- Languages
- ENGLISH, ARABIC
- Budget
- 10 - 25 M$
- Duration
- 110 mn
- Director(s)
- Eran RIKLIS
- Writer(s)
- Nader RIZQ
- Cast
- Stephen DORFF, Alice TAGLIONI, Abdallah EL AKAL, Loai NOFI, Ali SULIMAN, Ashraf BARHOM
- ISAN
- 0000-0003-7436-0000-D-0000-0000-Z
- EIDR
- 10.5240/48A3-7484-C90D-20C8-2321-8
- Producer(s)
- Fred RITZENBERG, Gareth UNWIN (BEDLAM PRODUCTIONS)
- Synopsis
- It is 1982, Beirut, Lebanon. Twelve-year-old FAHED lives in poverty with his father and grandfather in the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp. His father obsessively tends his prized but sickly olive tree, a remnant of the home they fled in 1948. He refuses to plant it until they return to their ancestral land. Bright, smart and knowing how to work the streets, FAHED and his group of friends are playing one
  day when they see something come off an Israeli jet. Not knowing what they will discover the group heads off to recover the item. What they are not expecting to find is YONI a proud, second generation fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force. Having to eject on his latest sortie he is captured, and imprisoned in the very camp where Fahed lives.
  Face-to-face with the enemy Israeli, Fahed predictably takes his anger out on the pilot, and receives the same in return. It’s not until Fahed
  realises that the olive tree is dying, that he hatches a plan to free the prisoner, using Yoni to get him past the border and into “Palestine” to plant his father’s olive tree. It is here their journey begins. Fahed and Yoni must overcome the fierce hatred, raw emotion and intolerance built up over generations in order to survive the dangerous journey as Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese militia chase them across war-torn Lebanon. A tenuous friendship takes root and strengthens with every hurdle they overcome, to reach the land they both consider home.
  Zaytoun is a story of survival, reconciliation and friendship. The pilot and boy gain one another’s respect and trust, and a charming and inspirational friendship is allowed to blossom.