Life Sentences

"A remarkable documentary portrait of a man whose very body and soul reflect Israel and Palestine complexities.” – Jerusalem Film festival Jury, 2014.

Best Documentary Jerusalem Film Festival, 2013. For the first part of his life, Nimer Ahmed lives with his sister and parents; his Jewish mother and Arab father in an Arab-Jewish community. When, in the late 1960s it is discovered that Ahmed’s father, Fauzi al Nimer, is behind dozens of terror attacks in Israel, his mother flees with the two children, taking refuge in an Orthodox community in Montreal, Canada. The family keeps its past a secret. More than a simple portrait of the human cost of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Life Sentences is about Ahmed’s isolated childhood and conflicted adulthood, and the power of family secrets to shape and stunt identity. A deeply psychological family drama, this film also shows Ahmed’s healing through facing his father and his past.