After taking the top awards at the Locarno Film Festival's work-in-progress sections, SAND STORM had its North American premiere at this year's Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic award. The film was also shown in the Panorama section at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival and also won the New Directors competition at the Seattle International Film Festival.
The film is now scheduled to open in New York City (Sept, 28, at Film Forum) and Los Angeles (Oct. 7, at the Royal) and will expand nationwide during the fall.
Synopsis: In a Bedouin village in southern Israel, Jalila prepares to host an awkward celebration: the marriage of her husband to a second (and noticeably younger) wife. Stoically concealing her inner turmoil while trying to maintain tradition, Jalila will brook no nonsense from any of her daughters on a day when the eyes of the entire village are upon them. But when Jalila discovers that her eldest, Layla, is involved in a clandestine relationship with a boy at school, all her suppressed emotion finds an outlet.
Layla, more like her mother than she will admit, is convinced that reason and resolve will be enough to win her freedom, but village politics quickly close that door. As Layla, her mother, her sisters, and the men of the village all navigate territory strewn with emotional landmines, Sand Storm spins a riveting tale of subterfuge, secrets, and fealty.
The result of a robust collaboration between Jewish Israeli director Elite Zexer and a combined Jewish and Arab crew, Sand Storm details a struggle between two iron-willed female characters, propelled by the performances of Lamis Ammar as the spirited Layla and Ruba Blal-Asfour as the acid-tongued Jalila. The tension between them highlights the challenges of all women struggling for autonomy within deeply entrenched patriarchal constraints, and Zexer's film shows the intense psychological gymnastics performed by families who live one life outside of the house and another within - all wrapped up in the tangled tapestry of society and tradition, - JANE SCHOETTLE (TIFF)
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