Eid milad Laila 2009

"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.

Cast:

Mohammad Bakri
Abu Laila 

Areen Omari
Um Laila 

Nour Zoubi
Laila 

Saleh Bakri
Former Prisoner 

Walid Abed Elsalam
Director in the Ministry of Justice 

Mahmoud Awadd
Mechanic 

• Laila's Birthday