"At eight o'clock, it's Laila's birthday, okay?" Palestinian judge turned cab driver Abu Laila's wife reminds her husband. But on his young daughter's birthday, like any day, Abu faces a nerve-wracking shift in a Ramallah yellow cab armed only with an ex-jurist's misplaced pride, a father's loyalty, and a sticker reminding passengers that smoking and carrying AK-47s are prohibited. Rather than address politics or document holy war heroics and villainy, Laila's Birthday focuses on the toll that the unending Palestinian-Israeli conflict extracts from civilians clinging to both employment and a semblance of normal life amidst chaos and corruption, missile attacks and bursts of gunfire.
Credits
Laila's Birthday Cast
| Name |
Character |
|
Saleh Bakri
He was 30, now 47 years old
|
as Former Prisoner |
|
Areen Omari
She was 55, now 71 years old
|
as Um Laila |
|
Mohammad Bakri
He was 54, now 70 years old
|
as Abu Laila |
Laila's Birthday Crew
