In Fair Palestine: A story of Romeo and Juliet is afilm produced byPalestinianhigh school students at theQuaker-runRamallah Friends Schools in theWest Bank. A documentary drama, it reprises the story ofRomeo and Juliet in the modern-day context of life in a Palestinian city,Ramallah. Work on the project was initiated in January 2006 by Doug Hart, an English teacher ofAmerican background .[1] The film premiered on 19 January 2008 at the Ramallah Cultural Palace to an audience of 800 people in the 700 seat cinema. The premiere garnered coverage by mainstream media outlets in thePalestinian territories,Jordan andSyria.
Hart proposed the idea to create the movie and gathered together a group of 10th grade students to work on the project. Students did background research onShakespeare'sRomeo and Juliet.[2] During 11th grade, the writers and the director of the movie worked on the script and, in the summer, begin shooting. Shooting ran from 7 June until 28 September. Editing efforts continued through 12th grade until the film was finalized, a few days before its premier on 19 January 2008.
Tarek Knorn, one of the students involved as a co-writer and as an actor, playing the role ofMercutio, explained why the students chose to do an adaptation of Shakespeare's play:
"We thought we would use a play that has values and principles that are shared by people all over the world. Issues that people all over the world have to deal with and learn from such asarranged marriages,love at first sight, teenage life, et cetera. We felt it was a good idea and saw it as our first chance to express ourselves in a manner different from the way the news represents us."[3]
According to the students, the film is designed to humanize Palestinians and show the side of Palestine that does not always make its way into film. The film is made in the form of dramatic scenes interspersed withdocumentary pieces, so as to convey the lives of Palestinianteenagers. Based on the play byWilliam Shakespeare, the movie deals with the lives of twostar-crossed Palestinian lovers as they grapple with the realities of their everyday lives.
In this adaptation of the famous play, Romeo and Juliet meet at a party celebrating theMuslimpilgrimage toMecca. They are wed in secret by asheikh. The film follows the basic plotline of the original Romeo and Juliet, though in the film, Romeo does not hear of Juliet's faked death because a messenger sent to bring him the news is stopped at anIsraeli checkpoint.[3]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)