Interview with the filmmakers of “Holy Air”
Holy Air is a satirically sad and humorous look at Christian life in Israel. Movie review of “Holy Air” by writer and producer Shady Srour and Director Ilan Moskovitch. Arabic, English and Hebrew. Also a Podcast Interview with Srour and Moskovitch about the challenges of making a film that speaks to the life of Arab Christians
By Ray Hanania
Christian Arabs are an oppressed people throughout the Middle East, Israel and the Arab World. But their talents are amazing.
Israeli Christian Palestinian Shady Srour partnered with Israeli Jewish filmmaker Ilan Moskovitch to produce a new film called “Holy Air” that gives the audience a peek into the difficult life of the Christian Arab trying to survive in a difficult world.
Srour, the Writer and Director of Holy Air, plays “Adam,” a Palestinian living in the shadow of the Middle East conflict in Nazareth in the Galilee in Israel. His wife, Lamia, (played by Laetitia Eido) is obsessed with having a baby and his father is dying from cancer. As his father’s life winds down, Adam faces a dilemma with how to support his family.
Does he continue in his partnership, take over his father’s bottle making business, or does he do something else.
While contemplating this life-altering choice, Adam decides to pursue a unique business, selling an unusual souvenir to the Christian tourists who come to Nazareth by the hundreds of thousands each year. Already religious tourists find themselves inundated with many religious souvenirs including holy water, rosaries, religious icons, and more.
But Adam decides he needs something different, and using the small bottles his father’s company manufactures, takes the bottles to the top of a popular religious pilgrimage site, Mt. Precipice in Nazareth, where he holds the bottles in the air and seals them with the “holy air” from the mountain top.
As his wife’s pregnancy matures and his father’s cancer progresses, Adam navigates in the world of religious mafia, extortion, business jealousies, skepticism, politics, and the lines that separate Christians, Muslims and Jews in Israel.
The opening scene is one that will shock the sensibilities of conservatives in the Arab and Israeli communities, but it’s a scene that many couples experience in the excitement and anticipation of wanting a baby. Srour and Moskovitch, who is the producer, are not afraid to push the line using conventions some would consider taboo (or haram), but in reality offer a real-life perspective that reflects the truth of how many live and survive today in the Holy Land.
Here is a podcast interview I did recently with Shady Srour and Ilan Moskovitch, followed by some notes about the film.
You will definitely enjoy this film, which I saw with English sub-titles. It’s phenomenal and captures the reality of Christian life in the Middle East in a way you may never forget.
PODCAST INTERVIEW OF FILMMAKERS
Click here to listen to an audio interview with Shady Srour and Ilan Moskovitch, or use the widget below to listen to the 30 minute interview:
Notes about the film:
“Holy Air” Challenges the sexual norms we fear that are common in Western films but hesitant in Middle East movies, especially those filmed in the Arab World. Srour received funding from Israel, but notes that filmmakers in the Arab World are subject to the pressures of those who are willing to support your efforts.
He received no support from the Arab World and his film has not been embraced by Arabs and Palestinians in the West who hug movies that champion their political views, but shun movies that suggest truths that they seek to avoid.
“Holy Air” forces audiences to openly discuss issues that they often only discuss in private; failing to talk about controversial issues promotes misinformation and results in radicalism.
There is hints of sexuality in the film, and even a moment when Adam enjoys a homemade sheesha pipe that he made from a plastic bottle that the audience can assume has some hasheesh. Adam is burden by worry: building a room for his new child, helping his father as he fights cancer, caring for his wife and mother, and finding a business that will put food on his table.
The cultural norms all come out in “Holy Air” and that is so important.
When a film touches on these topics in the context of a great story, you know the film is going to be good … if it is afraid to touch on everyday topics that we all deal with but pretend don’t exist, then the film won’t be good. But, Holy Air is not only good. It is great!
Holy Air
Shady Srour, Writer Director
Ilan Moskovitch, Producer
Adam — Shady Srour
Lamia — Laetitia Eido
Priest Roberto — Samuel Calderon
Adam’s father — Tareq Kopty
Run Time 1 Hour 20 minutes
- New Europe Film Sales (2017) (World-wide) (all media)
- Samuel Goldwyn Films (2017) (USA) (all media)
Official Film Website: www.samuelgoldwynfilms.com/holy-air
Watch the Trailer below:
Holy Air by Shady Srour – trailer from New Europe Film Sales on Vimeo.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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#HolyAirMovie Holy Air is a must-see film for anyone who cares about Palestinian Christians, Israeli-Palestinian peace, and Palestinian life inside Israel. The filmmakers Shady Srour and Ilan Moskovitch do a brilliant job of presenting the challenges of a Christian living in Nazareth to the audience.