Maha Haj was born in Nazareth in 1970 and graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She wrote and directed the short film Oranges (2009) and the documentary Within These Walls (2010), and worked on the production design of films by Elia Suleiman, Ziad Douairi and Raphaël Nadjari. Personal Affairs (2016), her critically acclaimed first feature-length fiction film, had its premiere in Un Certain Regard at the Festival de Cannes and won the Haifa Film Festivalâs Best Feature Award and the Mediterranean Film Festival of Montpellierâs Criticsâ Award, among other prizes. Maha Haj was born in Nazareth in 1970 and graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She wrote and directed the short film Oranges (2009) and the documentary Within These Walls (2010), and worked on the production design of films by Elia Suleiman, Ziad Douairi and Raphaël Nadjari. Personal Affairs (2016), her critically acclaimed first feature-length fiction film, had its premiere in Un Certain Regard at the Festival de Cannes and won the Haifa Film Festivalâs Best Feature Award and the Mediterranean Film Festival of Montpellierâs Criticsâ Award, among other prizes.
Forty-year-old Waleed lives in Haifa with his wife and children and dreams of a writing career while suffering from chronic depression. He develops a close relationship with his neighbourâa small-time crookâwith an ulterior plot in mind. While the scheme turns into an unexpected friendship between the two men, it leads them into a journey of dark encounters.
Director : Maha Haj
Producer : Baher Agbariya, Thanassis Karathanos, Martin Hampel, Juliette Lepoutre, Pierre Menahem, Marios Piperides, Janine Teerling
Screenwriter : Maha Haj
Cinematographer : Antoine Héberlé
Production Designer : Andreas Antoniou
Editor : Véronique Lange
Sound : Jorg Weimann, Adrian Baumeister, Florian Marquardt, Henry Uhl
Music : Munder Odeh
Production Company : Majdal Films, Pallas Film, Still Moving, Amp Filmworks
International Sales : Luxbox