Another Road Home

Director: Danae Elon
Israel 2005 79mins
Language: English, Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles

Award-winning Israeli filmmaker and daughter of renowned writer Amos Elon, portrays her quest to find Musa Obeidallah, the Palestinian man whose love and sacrifice profoundly influenced her life. Shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967, Danae Elon’s parents hired a Palestinian man named Musa, the father of eleven children, to take care of their six month old daughter. It was a job he would continue for the next twenty years. The last time Danae saw Musa, in 1991, he proudly showed her the house he had constructed in the Palestinian village of Battir. Then, against the mounting tensions of the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Intifada, the two families lost track of each other. During that time Danae began to realise how much of an influence Musa had had on her life and sought to reconnect with him. Her quest led her from her home in New York to Paterson, New Jersey, then to Battir in the occupied territories, and back to her birthplace in Jerusalem. As they carefully break the silence, the encounters between Danae and Musa’s sons, and eventually Musa himself, bring to the surface an emotionally complex story that is alternately heartwarming and painful.