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Lemon Tree

1. Author: Eran Riklis, Suha Arraf
2. Director: Eran Riklis
3. Screenplay: Eran Riklis, Suha Arraf
4. Editor: Tova Asher
5. Photography: Rainer Klausmann
6. Scenography: Miguel Markin
7. Music: Habib Shadah
8. Starring:
   Hiam Abbass, Rona Lipaz-Michael, Ali Suliman, Liron Baranes, Doron Tavory, Amos Lavi
9. Production: Heimatfilm, MACT Productions, Eran Riklis Production, Riva Filmproduktion, ZDF/Arte, Canal+, Israeli Film Fund, CNC, United Kingdom Films
10. Germany
11. 106 min.
12. 2008

In a land torn by conflicts Salma Zidane, a Palestinian widow, holds her family and tradition together through caring passionately for a lemon grove. This, being on the Cisjordan border, causes damage to the new mansion of the Israeli Defense Minister. Afraid that the grove can be used as a shield for possible terrorists, the Minister orders to uproot it and build a high wall for security purposes. But the lemon grove is the only source of wealth of Salma, who engages in a disastrous legal struggle that would develop all the way up to the Supreme Court and would drive the country’s attention towards a corruption and expropriation case. The image of a neglected, violated garden left to die reflects the action of a cultural ‘herbicide’ that uses separatism as its only weapon: no room for the reconciling power of nature, no room for the comfort of a bond with land. While the matter is the result of cultural, rather than political struggles, the court would confirm the security of the Israeli state as the main priority, but would equally provide for the cutting of a limited number of plants, rather than uprooting the entire garden. Thus the roots remain, and with them remains the last spark of a potential future rebirth that, starting from land itself, points out to a new opportunity for dialogue and mutual understanding. The same, albeit silent and concealed, that are established between Salma and the Minister’s wife.