Elia Suleiman
إيليا سليمان
Filmmaker
Nazareth-born filmmaker whose deadpan, near-silent cinema turned Palestinian life under occupation into absurd, precise comedy.
Elia Suleiman was born in Nazareth in 1960. He lived in New York from 1981 to 1993, making his first short films there, then returned to Jerusalem, where he helped establish a film and media department at Birzeit University. His features are built from stillness, silence, and long, precisely composed tableaux — a style critics have compared to Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati — through which he examines occupation, exile, and the strangeness of everyday life.
His first feature, Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996), won the Best First Film prize at the Venice Film Festival. Divine Intervention (2002), a surreal love story staged at a checkpoint, won the Jury Prize at Cannes. The Time That Remains (2009), drawn from his father’s diaries and his mother’s letters, traces one Nazareth family from 1948 to the present; It Must Be Heaven (2019) follows a Suleiman-like observer from Nazareth to Paris and New York, finding Palestine everywhere he goes.
Selected works
- Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996)
- Divine Intervention (2002)
- The Time That Remains (2009)
- It Must Be Heaven (2019)
Sources
Further reading
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Connected in the archive
10 connected records10 records elsewhere in the archive are linked to this one, each by a piece of evidence you can read below.
born in — 1 record
- Nazarethالناصرة
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: birthplace: "Nazareth, Palestine" → Nazareth (Lower Galilee)
named in this record — 1 record
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- Jerusalemالقدس
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Elia Suleiman was born in Nazareth in 1960. He lived in New York from 1981 to 1993, making his first short films there, then returned to Jerusalem, where he helped establish a film and media department at Birzeit University.
names this person — 1 record
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- Palestinian Cinema
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Directors such as Michel Khleifi (Wedding in Galilee, 1987) and Elia Suleiman established its international presence, blending realism, satire, and the surreal condition of statelessness.
on a related subject — 7 records
Filed near each other — the same Mandate district, or the same uncommon subject tags.
- Annemarie Jacirآن ماري جاسر
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Shared tags: "cinema", "film".
- Karimeh Abbudكريمة عبود
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "Nazareth".
- Khalil Beidasخليل بيدس
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "Nazareth".
- Le Trio Joubranالثلاثي جبران
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "Nazareth".
- Rim Bannaريم بنّا
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "Nazareth".
- Taha Muhammad Aliطه محمد علي
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "Nazareth".
- and 1 more
Cite this page
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- Chicago
“Elia Suleiman.” Figures, FALASTEEN.AI. Accessed 22 August 2026. https://falasteen.ai/figures/elia-suleiman.- MLA
“Elia Suleiman.” Figures, FALASTEEN.AI, 2026, https://falasteen.ai/figures/elia-suleiman. Accessed 22 August 2026.- BibTeX
@misc{falasteen-elia-suleiman, title = {Elia Suleiman}, howpublished = {\url{https://falasteen.ai/figures/elia-suleiman}}, organization = {FALASTEEN.AI — A Living Archive for Palestine}, year = {2026}, note = {Accessed 2026-08-22} }