Omar

Omar (2013) is a Palestinian drama thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Directed by Hany Abu-Assad — whose Paradise Now (2005) established him as the defining voice of Palestinian cinema — the film picked up an Academy Award nomination for Best International Film at the 2014 ceremony.

Omar scales a concrete wall every day to reach Nadia, the woman he loves. Her brother Tarek is his closest friend; together with a third friend Amjad, they cross a line that gets Omar arrested. Israeli officer Rami then offers him an exit: inform on his circle or stay in a cell. What follows is a trap with no clean way out, and the film spends its remaining time watching Omar try to find a thread that still holds. Adam Bakri carries nearly the entire film on his face. Leem Lubany plays Nadia with exactly enough opacity that you, like Omar, are never quite sure what she knows.

Abu-Assad shoots the occupation not as backdrop but as weather — the wall, the checkpoints, the interrogation rooms are simply the environment people exist inside. Stream Omar (2013) online on iFILM.