It Must Be Heaven

The artist Elia comes from Nazareth and finds himself greatly surprised by the country and its people. Even his own garden and its lemon trees are not safe from the covetousness of his neighbors. Soon Elia sets off to find a new home elsewhere and leave behind the strange loneliness of the head-shaking observer. He goes to countries where women are free and art is so beautifully tolerant, where parks are public and no one steals their neighbors’ lemons. Elia becomes an explorer in the westernmost metropolises, Paris and New York. On his forays through urban spaces, he encounters aggressive park visitors, remote-controlled tourists, rolling police officers armed up to the teeth. Once again, Elia is surprised, but his surprise soon turns into an all-too-familiar sense of alienation. Here, too, the world has fallen apart, and encounters are fraught with terror. The facial expressions of the man who arrived in search of a home and is condemned to apathy become smaller and smaller. And the extent of the absurdity that has become our normality becomes greater and greater. In the end, is friendship with a small, cheeky bird all that remains? Elia returns to his garden in Nazareth and is once again surprised: by a lovingly tended and thriving lemon tree.

Director Elia Suleimann sets off as a carefree flâneur and experiences an odyssey into the absurd abysses of our time. Rarely has an observer’s shock been expressed so light-heartedly in a comedy of errors. With a great deal of delight in the comedy that lies in contradiction, IT MUST BE HEAVEN succeeds in creating grandiose sketches that come together to form a terribly beautiful panorama of an approaching apocalypse.

• Cannes FF
• Shanghai IFF
• FF Mailand
• FF Munich
• New Horizons FF
• Sarajewo FF
• Toronto IFF
• Palm Springs IFF
• Seville European FF
• Brussels IFF

• Special Mention & The Prix FIBRESCI / Cannes FF
• Best Director & Best Film / The Critics Awards for Arab Films Award
• Jury Award / Asia Pacific Screen Awards