We are excited to see the Boston-area premiere of this Friday! With nearly perfect score on and a continuous stream of positive reviews from critics and audience members alike, Hany Abu-Assad’s second Oscar-nominated film does not look like it will disappoint.
Omar centers around a young man (Adam Bakri), caught within the vicious thralls of a life without freedom. Oppressed by an occupation he can’t control, Omar and his two friends are compelled by the situation to resist violently. What follows is a toe-curling cat-and-mouse game between Omar and the Israeli agent (Waleed Zuaiter) who is assigned to his case.
But under the Omar vs. Agent Rami synopsis – more importantly – is a love story. Director Hany Abu-Assad chose to focus on the relationship between Omar and Nadia (Leem Lubany) and the obstacles, physical and not, that thwart their relationship.
“When you want to make a story, you want to make a story that can survive this conflict. This conflict is going to die, sooner or later. But you don’t want your story to die with the conflict,” Abu-Assad said in an interview with , “[So] you deal with universal themes like love, friends, trust betrayal. And these themes will never die.”
One of the main hindrances obstructing Omar and Nadia’s relationship is the despotic Separation Wall that cuts through the West Bank. That Omar and Nadia are both Palestinian and also divided by the threatening concrete partition was key to the story’s drive. The Wall’s significance in the film means to showcase how Palestinians themselves are isolated from Israelis, as well as each other.
“The reality is the opposite of what everyone thinks. Much of the wall is built inside the West Bank between Palestinians…Why? I think the main issue of the wall was to cut Palestinians from each other…. Because if it [was] a big area, you can control it less,” Abu-Assad .
In this way, Omar is as tragic as it is romantic. For no matter how many times Omar is able to scale the Wall for Nadia, he cannot govern his own fate without facing the very mechanisms that bind his existence.
Both Lubany and Bakri are making their feature film debuts with Omar. In fact, Lubany had never even acted before she was given the script to practice before her screen test. Bakri, who recently from the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City, was the obvious choice to play Omar for Abu-Assad.
“Adam is a very sensitive guy in his nature, not just an actor. He’s a very generous young man,” Abu-Assad added.
Boston’s sold-out premiere of Omar is this Friday, February 28 at 7:30pm at West Newton Cinema.
For the latest news, follow us on and like BPFF on !
By Alia Gilbert