CPFF2026 Review: Sink

Year: 2025

Runtime: 88 min

Director/Writer: Zain Duraie

Actors: Clara Khoury, Mohammad Nizar, and Wissam Tobaileh

By Guest Reviewer Alexei Holloway

“Sink” (2025) is a heartrending look at a family coming to terms with their son’s mental illness. 

Basil (Mohammad Nizar) is the middle child of a middle-class, Jordanian family. While he is brilliant, he struggles socially and prefers spending time alone studying and watching videos on open heart surgery. He wants to be a heart surgeon. His oldest brother is the charming all-star basketball player and his sister is the cute and sweet little sister. His father travels for his work and while he adores his oldest and youngest children, he has a hard time connecting with his middle child. Basil’s mother, Nadia (Clara Khoury) adores him and is his biggest supporter and champion. 

            Nadia’s love for her son and his father’s distance prevent both parents from recognizing and acknowledging that Basil needs help. However, their ignorance is shattered when Basil is suspended for hitting a teacher. We see the events that lead up to the supposed assault, but we don’t see the assault itself, leaving it up to the audience to decide who is telling the truth: the school or Basil, who claims it was an accident. The father sides with the school while Nadia sides with her son. 

            Their eldest son has a championship game out of the city. The rest of the family goes to the game while Basil and Nadia remain home. Nadia believes if they have a few days alone, she can reach her son and “fix” whatever the problem is. Their loving moments of reconnecting are with many alarming moments such as when Basil wakes her up while wearing a horse mask and forces her to wear a bunny mask and then grunts at her and when he goes to a park with a chicken coop and tries to murder the chickens. 

            Basil’s parents schedule a therapist but he refuses to go and lashes out, hurting his mother in the process. Horrified by what he’s done, Basil reports himself to the police. When the police arrive, Nadia rushes to her son’s side and sits with him in the ambulance, holding his hands, making it clear that she will remain by his side no matter what.  

            “Sink” can be a difficult watch as Nadia struggles with accepting that her son needs help and Basil grows increasingly unpredictable. Clara Khoury gives an outstanding performance as her love for her son is always present, even when she is terrified of him. She never gives up on him, even when he attacks her, and yet she can’t stop her heart from breaking when she realizes she isn’t sure she can help him. Mohammad Nizar gives a truly moving performance as a teen who knows he is different but doesn’t understand why. Nizar never allows Basil to be a monster. He makes Basil adorably at ease when he is playing with his little sister, letting her put makeup on him and playing charades, and helping his mother around the house and, even when Basil is at his most threatening, he is not a cruel psychopath. He is a lost and struggling child who doesn’t have the tools to help him survive in a neurotypical world.

Review: Palestine ’36

Year: 2026

Runtime: 1hr 59 min

Director: Annemarie Jacir

Writer: Annemarie Jacir

Actors: Hiam Abbass, Yasmine Al Massri, Karim Daoud Anaya, Robert Aramayo, Jeremy Irons, and Liam Cunningham

By Guest Reviewer Alexei Holloway

It would be hard to find a film more timely than “Palestine ‘36” (2026.) Written and directed by Annemarie Jacir, “Palestine ‘36” is a historical drama that immerses its viewers into the Palestinian perspective of the Palestinian Revolt of 1936. 

The film follows the stories of three Palestinian families: Yusuf, Hanan, and Afra; Khouloud and her husband Amir, and Father Boulos, a Christian priest, and his son Kareem. 

Yusuf, played by Karim Daoud Anaya, is from the fictional village of al Basma and finds himself torn between village life and city life. When Yusuf’s father is killed and his brother is arrested, Yusuf joins the rebels who live in the countryside. However, the rebel’s actions bring increased British scrutiny and raids to his village and threaten the lives of his family and neighbors.

Khouloud, played by the amazing Yasmine Al Massri, is a journalist writing under the pseudonym of Ahmad Canaanli because people will only read her articles if they believe she is a man. Khouloud is a firm believer in Palestinian autonomy and reports on the British army’s violent repressive measures and the Zionist settlers’ seemingly neverending stealing of Palestinian land. Her husband, Amir, is a landlord who believes he can retain his wealth and power if he works with the British and the Zionist settlers. 

Father Boulos, played by Jalal Altawil, and Kareem are members of Yusuf’s village and the fact that they are Christian Palestinians who side with their Muslim neighbors flabbergasts the British. 

            The film’s greatest strength is its cast. Predictably, Jeremy Irons is the perfect face of British indifference to indigenous people’s rights and humanity and Robert Aramayo’s Orde Wingate is appropriately cruel and fanatic. Dhafer L’Abidine provides Amir, a man we should hate, with just enough charm to turn his character into a walking tragedy. The moment he realizes that he’s betrayed his people for nothing is one of the most haunting moments in a film full of haunting moments. 

However, the true stars of the film are the female leads: Hiam Abbass and Yasmine Al Massri. Hiam Abbass’ Hanan is a loving mother with a spine of steel who does whatever she can to protect her family and land, even if that means helping a wounded rebel and hiding arms from the British. She is often left alone, weaponless and at the mercy of British patrols but never cowers or hesitates. She is the ultimate representation of the inner strength of every Palestinian mother, wife, and sister who has survived the worst anyone can imagine and still gets up in the morning to do it all over again.

Yasmine Al Massri’s Khouloud is, perhaps, the star of the film. She is absolutely charming, courageous, and powerful as the voice of the Palestinian people. As a member of the elite, she is often gathering secrets from British diplomat Thomas and insulting Wingate before leaving him to deal with matters of real importance. Although she knows Amir does not agree with her pro-Palestinian stance, she still loves him and never imagines he’d actually work with the Zionist settlers to sellout their own land. She is crushed by his betrayal but not broken and continues to fight for a free Palestine. 

“Palestine ‘36″’s vast and complicated story combined with its two hour runtime creates choppy pacing, underdeveloped relationships, obscures the depth and brutality of the Zionist and British alliance, and prevents the full exploration of the many ideas it introduces. At the same time, what it manages to cover is both impressive and heartbreaking. While far from a perfect movie, it is an important film that tells the story of the carving up of Palestine from the Palestinian perspective; a perspective that has been overshadowed and suppressed for the last seventy years. The power of Palestinian voices is what makes this movie a must see.

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