Winner! FIPRESCI Jury Award
- The Intl. Fed. of Film Critics

Winner! Golden Leopard Award, Best Director
- Locarno Film Festival

Winner! Bronze Leopard Award, Best Actor, Mohammed Bakri
- Locarno Film Festiva

“. . . acted with fierce conviction”
- Village Voice

“. . . captures [war’s] harrowing complexities with unerring accuracy”
- Toronto Int’l Film Festival

“. . . an effectively didactic thriller”
- Philadelphia Inquirer

Inspired by real events, documentary filmmaker Saverio Costanzo’s feature debut is a minimalist psychological drama about a Palestinian family of seven suddenly confronted with a volatile situation in their home that in many ways reflects the larger ongoing conflict between Palestine and Israel.

Winner of a Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival, Private is convincingly shot in a documentary style with a hand-held camera and a quick pace. Director Costanzo has created a unique occasion for both Israeli and Palestinian actors to work together, and being an outsider himself, he has worked to maintain a neutral standpoint while dramatizing the conflict.

Official Selection of the 2005 Vancouver International Film Festival and San Francisco International Film Festival

Rental Information
This film is available from AFD on 35mm and video for public screenings and television broadcast. For information regarding rental rates and formats, please contact institutions@arabfilm.com for institutional/non-theatrical screenings, or festivals@arabfilm.com for theatrical, festival, television, or other bookings.