Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Palestinian drama film Omar screened at Lok Virsa on Saturday, the film has been selected as the Palestinian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards.

The screening was organized by Lok Virsa media center in it’s Mandwa Film Club. A large number of citizens attended the event. The film was screened first time in New York city in 2013 and declared as best foreign language film among its five other competitors who took part in the film screening contest.

Beside this award the movie also won several other awards including Best Feature Film Award, Grand Jury Prize, Best Performance by an Actor, Achievement in Cinematography, Silver Frog Prize for Best Cinematography, UN Certain Regard Jury Prize,Tanit d’or, Muhr Arab Best Director Award, Muhr Best Film, Youth Jury Award, Crystal Simorgh Prize for Best Direction, Grand Marnier Fellowship Award, Best Film and Norwegian Peace Film Award.

Directed by Hany Abu-Assad, the film revolves around a boy Omar (real name Adam Bakri). In the film he is a Palestinian baker and frequently climbs the West Bank barrier to visit his lover Nadia (real name Leem Lubany). Nadia was a high-school girl and Omar wishes to marry her.

To find his destination Omar seeks help of his couple of childhood friends–Tarek and Amjad. On this way they have been beaten by a group of Israeli soldiers. After which they staged an attack on an Israeli checkpoint.

During the attack, Amjad kills an Israeli soldier. In the result of murder of their soldier, the Israeli authorities started to pursue them (killer and helpers). The authorities captured Omar and imprisoned him. Facing a lengthy prison term, he (Omar) is forcibly compelled by an Israeli agent Rami into working as a double agent for the Israeli authorities. Agent Rami secures Omar’s release in exchange for the latter bringing Tarek to the authorities.

Due to Omar’s early release, many in his community starts look him as a suspected collaborator.

Omar’s plight is further complicated by the fact that his lover (Nadia) is Tarek’s sister. Due to Omar’s delays in keeping his side of the bargain, he is arrested again by the Israeli authorities. During his imprisonment, he makes a second deal with Agent Rami in order to find out who is betraying the Palestinian militants. Omar later learns that his friend Amjad is the spy. When confronted, Amjad confesses that Nadia is pregnant with his child and that the Israelis had used that to blackmail him into working for them.

Omar forces Amjad to confess to Tarek. During a succeeding struggle between the three men, Tarek is killed when his gun accidentally goes off. With the help of Agent Rami, Omar and Amjad managed to hide their involvement in Tarek’s death. Two years later, Omar visits Nadia and finds he was totally betrayed by Amjad who was not having an affair with Nadia and is now married to her with two children. She still loves him and finds Amjad did not deliver letters she wrote to him before marriage.Then he is revisited by Agent Rami who attempts to force him into killing another ringleader. By this stage, Nadia has abandoned her studies and become a house wife mother for his couple of young children. During a meeting with Agent Rami, Omar tricks the former into giving him a gun under the pretext of killing Amjad. Omar instead uses the gun to kill Agent Rami as an easy way out, but the outcome of Amjad is left unclear.