The Syrian Bride

In this moving drama from Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis, a young Israeli woman, engaged to a Syrian man, faces the fact that marriage to her betrothed in Syria will mean she can never return to Israel. But when she gets to the border and looks set to begin a new life, some surprises await her.

"The Syrian Bride manages the rare feat of blending the personal and the political in pitch-perfect fashion." ~ Frank Scheck, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

"Tackling serious issues with humor and understanding, the film portrays Mona's woes as a microcosm of the entire mess in the Middle East." ~ V.A. Musetto, NEW YORK POST

"Eran Riklis's tightly wound film is about a bride-to-be trapped between Syria and Israel." ~ Stephen Holden, NEW YORK TIMES

"It exudes affection, for its characters and their culture as well as the unprepossessing beauty of the scrubby terrain that holds them in thrall." ~ J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE

“All politics is personal, but rarely has that credo been illustrated so winningly as with Eran Riklis’ delicate comedy about the maddening intersection of families, cultures and borders. On her wedding day, Mona (Clara Khoury) worries about marrying a popular Syrian TV actor (Derar Sliman) she’s never met, but that’s just the beginning of the troubles facing her brood, stateless citizens of the occupied Golan Heights who are caught in a no man’s land between feuding neighbors Syria and Israel. Keeping the tone light, Riklis offers a plainspoken but affecting look at daily Middle Eastern tensions, examining Mona’s clan person by person (from her bitter activist father to her black-sheep brother who dared marry a Russian woman), so that we see how every life is influenced by the area’s religious and cultural frictions. (After the overt speechifying of Paradise Now and Munich, The Syrian Bride is a welcome relief — a deceptively breezy geopolitical tutorial.) We come to enjoy these people’s company so much — especially the quiet strength of Mona’s beleaguered older sister Amal (Hiam Abbass) — that when Riklis’ narrative takes an absurdist twist toward the end, it’s the only time that his characters take a back seat to plot and his otherwise graceful social commentary feels forced. By crafting its message in mostly understated strokes, The Syrian Bride touches your heart, which you might not even fully realize until its deft, wordless final moments sweep by you.” L.A. WEEKLY