Been on a foreign film kick for the past...13 years or so, so for me it's "Ajami" (honestly it only caught my eye because the director's name is Scandar Copti; yeah, I know, I'm lame), "Under the Bombs", and "The Counterfeiters", from Palestine, Lebanon, and Germany (respectively). I'd seen the German film in theaters and liked it quite a bit (still do, apparently). Of the two Arabphone films, I'd prefer "Under the Bombs", but I have a request of filmmakers who deal with this part of the world: Can you please stop treating any story that has Christian and Muslim characters interacting like it's some sort amazingly special achievement? It's embarrassing. "He's a Christian...She's a Shi'ite...and he's driving her around in his taxi because she pays him to do that! Because that's his JOB! Watch as she does not signal Al-Qaeda with the some sort of terrorist 'bat signal' to come kill him. What a groundbreaking film this is!"
Oh, and a subrequest: Stop making us all look like miserable people. Of course the Christian guy has a love scene (and I'm not calling it that because his cab is adorned with a "just married" sign at any point)...why wouldn't he? And of COURSE the Christian girl falls in love with a Muslim, pressures him to tell her father about them, and her father flips out because
Christians are just so unfair and unenlightened about interfaith relationships! And it totally ruins the girl's life forever, because she could only ever love the Muslim guy! Now she'll never be complete! Wah wah wah. Why did I have to be born a Christian?

يا رب، ارحمني، المشاهد