Huda’s Salon (2021)

Saturday, October 23, 2022 at 3:00 pm

This film will be shown on the same program with We Never Left, Palestine.

Director: Hany Abu-Assad

Run Time: 1:31

Language: Arabic with English subtitles

Style: Narrative

Rating: R – disturbing violent content and graphic nudity

Year: 2022

Awards: Maisa Abd Elhadi, Winner “Best Actress” (The Critics Awards for Arab Films, 2022)

Tickets: $9 adults, $6 students

Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad, whose films Paradise Now and Omar were both nominated for Oscars, continues to deliver hard-hitting stories from the moral frontline. In Huda’s Salon, that line is located in “Bethlehem, West Bank, Occupied Palestine.” In a thriller of political and emotional twists and turns, Abu-Assad reveals a society poisoned by the betrayal and intrigue that comes with occupation.

Reem (Maisa Abd Elhadi) visits Huda’s hair salon for her usual treatment. As they chat, what starts as a lovely domestic drama shifts hard when Reem is betrayed by Huda (Manal Awad) and thrown into a dangerously compromising situation. She’s offered only one way out: work with Israel’s secret service, spying on her own community. As Reem tries to extricate herself from an impossible dilemma, Huda’s actions threaten her own safety. As in every region torn apart by war, the broader battle lines and larger violence also take a more intimate form between individuals trying to survive at any cost.