Gate of the Sun (Bab El Shams)

Los Angeles Filmforum presents

Gate of the Sun (Bab El Shams), directed by Yousry Nasrallah

Sunday June 8, 2025, 1:00pm
At 2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90057

Note the early start time. The film is five hours including intermission.

Tickets: $15 general, $10 students/seniors, free for Filmforum members

Link: https://link.dice.fm/E2da7e3b03f2 

Don’t miss this rare screening of the poignant Palestinian epic as it chronicles a history of many dimensions through captivating character and layered narratives. Rather than focusing on the suffering, Gate of the Sun (Bab El Shams) reflects the absurdity of life under the harshest conditions, recounting days not unfamiliar to the ones we are currently witnessing. 

Synopsis

Sheherazade’s tales of the Arabian Nights were a ploy to stave off her execution. So too, Khalil, a Palestinian Fidai’ turned revolutionary doctor as he keeps Younes, a resistance hero, alive by the rivers of talk.

Younés is Khalil’s mentor. He now lies in a coma, in the Beiruti camp of Shatila. Khalil’s stories cover fifty years of Palestinian history, from the birth of the State of Israel and the exodus of 1948 down to the Oslo peace agreements. 

About the Novel: by Elias Khoury

Bab El Shams, published by Dar El Adab in Beirut in 1998, is the first epic tale of the Palestinian diaspora to appear in Arabic. It begins with a portrayal of everyday life in Galilee in 1948 and follows the subsequent flight into the Lebanese camps. The story is rooted in oral history—collected accounts from villagers expelled from Palestine, verified by Palestinian historians. It can be read as a family saga, though it distorts the genre into a complex, polyphonic structure in which time and space fracture and shift. Bab El Shams is without doubt the major novel of Palestinian exile. It contains all the elements of a social fiction masterpiece: mesmerizing characters, a moving plot and subplot, and a cyclical structure that holds the reader's attention.

Yousry Nasrallah was born in Cairo in 1952, educated at the German school in Cairo, studied economics and political science at Cairo University before joining the Film Institute there in 1973.

In 1978, Nasrallah moved to Beirut where he remained for four years, earning his living as a journalist with the film magazine As-Safir. From 1980 onwards, he embarked upon a full-time career, working as production assistant on Volker Schlondorff’s Circle of Deceit in Beirut in 1981, then as assistant director on Youssef Chahine's La Memoire (Memory). In 1985, he co-wrote Chahine's Adieu Bonaparte (Farewell Bonaparte), as well as working as assistant-director on the production. In 1987, he wrote and directed his first film, Vols d'ete (Summer Flights) co­ produced by Chahine, a film which won numerous prizes and marked the rebirth of Egyptian cinema. In 1988-1990, he again co-wrote and worked as assistant on a film by Youssef Chahine, Alexandrie Encore et Toujours (Alexandria Again and Forever), before, in 1993 directing Mercedes, a work acclaimed by critics. In 1994, he made two shorts, The Extra and A Day in the Life of Youssef Chahine, part of a film special produced by Canal+. In 1995, he directed a documentary, Boys, Girls and the Veil which again received numerous prizes. In 1999, he directed La Ville (The City), co-produced by ARTE, which received a Special Jury Prize at the Locarno Film Festival. During 2001, he co-wrote the screenplay for Bab El Shams with Elias Khoury, adapted from Khoury's novel of the same name.