The Jacket

Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Lebanon | 2024 | 1h11 | Documentary “The Jacket” is a portrait of Jamal Hindawi, a Palestinian man who lives in exile with his family in the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. Together with his friends, he makes political theatre about their profound connection to their homeland, Palestine, and their situation as refugees in their country of residence, Lebanon. When Jamal embarks on a journey to search for an important lost theatre prop, he witnesses how the successive political and economic crises have disrupted an entire region and its people. A film by Mathijs Poppe Mathijs Poppe (Belgium, 1990) is a filmmaker. Living in Brussels, he developed close ties with the Palestinian community in Lebanon since his first visit to the Shatila refugee camp in 2008. In 2017, he graduated from the KASK School of Arts and gained acclaim for his graduation film, “Ours is a Country of Words”, filmed in Shatila. For his first feature film, “The Jacket” (2024), Poppe continued to deepen his collaboration with the Palestinian actor Jamal Hindawi and his family. Both films delicately tread the thin line between documentary and fiction.