The Time That Remains by Elia Suleiman (UK/Italy/Belgium/France, 2009, 109 min.). Subtitled Chronicle of a Present Absentee, this humorous, heartbreaking film is shot in homes and places where Suleiman’s family, who are Palestinian citizens of Israel, once lived. Inspired by his father’s diaries, letters his mother sent to family members who fled the Israeli occupation, and the director’s own recollections, the film spans from 1948 until the present, recounting the saga of Suleiman’s family in four elegantly stylized episodes. Suleiman plays a silent, impassive observer through a series of surreal, blackly comic episodes from his family’s history in Nazareth that show how people learn to live in the face of death, dispossession, and destruction. Each generation found its own strategy of resistance. Despite everything, he has found his own particular way to do something meaningful with “the time that remains.” “. . . a cool, controlled . . . masterpiece” (Philip French, The Observer).

Discussion with director follows screening, as well as a reception at the SMFA.

Reception tickets: MFA members, seniors, and students $15; general admission $20

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