The Time That Remains

Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman wrote and directed The Time That Remains: Chronicle of a Present Absentee, a semi-autobiographical drama from 2009 that recounts Palestinian life under Israeli occupation; the short form of its title is The Time That Remains. France, Israel and Italy co-produced the 109-minute film, with Belgian and British participation cited by other sources, and its dialogue is in English, Arabic and Hebrew.

The narrative reaches back to 1948, the Palestinian Nakba and the founding of the state of Israel. Suleiman tells of the upheaval that struck Nazareth that year through his own family and life, drawing on the diaries in which his father recorded the war days and what followed. The cast features Ali Suliman, Elia Suleiman, Saleh Bakri and Samar Qudha Tanus, together with Tarik Kopty, Amer Hlehel, Doraid Liddawi, Ziad Bakri, Menashe Noy, Nathan Ravitz and Maisa Abd Elhadi.

The film competed in the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2009 and was also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival that year. In November 2009 it shared the Jury Grand Prize at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards with About Elly. At the Mar del Plata International Film Festival it won the Critics Prize of the Argentinian Film Critics Association.