Omar (film)

Plot

Omar (Adam Bakri) is a Palestinian baker who frequently climbs the West Bank barrier to visit his lover Nadia (Leem Lubany), a high-school girl whom he intends to marry. After being beaten and humiliated by a group of Israeli soldiers, Omar and his childhood friends Tarek (Eyad Hourani) and Amjad (Samer Bisharat) stage an attack on an Israeli checkpoint. During the attack, Amjad shoots and kills an Israeli soldier. Later, Omar and his friends are subsequently pursued by the Israeli authorities. During the pursuit, Omar is captured and imprisoned by the Israeli authorities. Facing a lengthy prison term, Omar is forcibly coerced by an Israeli agent named Rami (Waleed Zuaiter) into working as a double agent for the Israeli authorities. Agent Rami secures Omar's release in exchange for the latter bringing Tarek to the authorities.

Due to his early release, Omar is stigmatized by many in his community as a suspected collaborator. Omar's predicament is further complicated by the fact that his lover Nadia is Tarek's sister. Due to Omar's delays in keeping his side of the bargain, he is arrested again by the Israeli authorities. During his imprisonment, he makes a second deal with Agent Rami in order to find out who is betraying the Palestinian militants. Omar later learns that his friend Amjad is the mole. When confronted, Amjad confesses that Nadia is pregnant with his child and that the Israelis had used that to blackmail him into working for them. Omar forces Amjad to confess to Tarek. During an ensuing struggle between the three men, Tarek is killed when his gun accidentally goes off. With the help of Agent Rami, Omar and Amjad managed to hide their involvement in Tarek's death.

Two years later, Omar visits Nadia and finds he was totally betrayed by Amjad who was not having an affair with Nadia and is now married to her with two children. She still loves him and finds Amjad did not deliver letters she wrote to him before marriage.Then he is revisited by Agent Rami who attempts to coerce him into killing another ringleader. By this stage, Nadia has abandoned her studies and become a homestay mother to two young children. Omar then contacts Agent Rami, trading his assistance of capturing the new ringleader of the Jerusalem Brigade for a gun, under the Pretext of killing Amjad. The movie then cuts to a scene where Omar is brokering a deal with the new ringleader, detailing how we wants to be the one who beats Amjad, foreshadowing events that would occur offscreen. During a meeting with Agent Rami, Omar tricks the former into giving him a gun. Omar instead uses the gun to kill Agent Rami as an easy way out, but the outcome of Amjad is left unclear.

Cast

Production

Director Hany Abu-Assad describes putting together the idea of the film in one night, writing the structure of the story in four hours and writing the script in four days. After a year of securing finance, filming began at the end of 2012 and took place mainly in Nazareth (Israel), Nablus and the Far'a refugee camp.

Waleed Zuaiter managed to secure the $2m budget for the film, 5% of which came from Enjaaz, the post-production fund of Dubai International Film Festival and the remainder from Palestinians.

Distribution

Adopt Films acquired all U.S. rights to Omar after its premier at the Cannes Film Festival. UK distribution rights was acquired by Soda Pictures and distribution rights in France was sold to Pretty Pictures.