{"id":239050,"date":"2025-10-25T03:31:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T03:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/239050\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T03:31:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T03:31:11","slug":"plestia-alaqad-joins-palestinian-horror-film-the-visitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/239050\/","title":{"rendered":"Plestia Alaqad Joins Palestinian Horror Film The Visitor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn early 2023, filmmaker Rolla Selbak completed her script for The Visitor<\/a>, a horror feature steeped in Palestinian folklore. The story centered on a young Palestinian man living in Jerusalem who must save his family after a Ghouleh, a female demon from his grandmother\u2019s folktales, arrive in his town and threatens his home.<\/p>\n

\n\tSelbak hoped the script would land at a major indie, and by the fall, she was set for a reading at AFM to drum up interest. But a few weeks before the event, the Oct. 7 attacks threw the world into turmoil. <\/p>\n

\n\tSelbak was unsure if anyone would want to check out a Palestinian horror script reading following the tragedy, but after some thought, decided to move forward, and found support at the film market a few weeks later.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\u201cAt AFM, there were people on the studio side coming up to me, saying how supportive they were, how much they loved it. But nobody wanted to touch it financing-wise,\u201d says Selbak.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe endured more setbacks, including CAA dropping her as a client. <\/p>\n

\n\tSelbak, who is a strong proponent for Palestine, was also unsure if it might seem frivolous to focus on a movie when so many Palestinians were suffering in the aftermath of Oct. 7. Ultimately, she decided that there would be power in telling the story of her people. \u201cPeople were listening, and it was the perfect time to tell the story of my people.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tBut two years later, The Visitor is becoming a reality, with a 25-day shoot in Jordan planned for 2026. \u00a0Watermelon Pictures in on board as an executive producer to help with financing. The production and distribution banner launched in 2024 and backed the Palestine\u2019s first Oscars submission, From Ground Zero, and it will work with Jordan-based Imaginarium on the shoot. Black Poppy Productions will produce with Selbak.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the casting side, Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, who earned an Emmy nomination for a 2012 episode of The Stream, has joined and will produce. And\u00a0Plestia Alaqad, whose memoir The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience recently became a New York Times best seller, has joined the cast as well.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRolla Selbak\u2019s vision is utterly unique, profoundly terrifying, and marks a bold new foray into genre films for Palestinian cinema. We\u2019re thrilled to be involved and to bring our passionate team to this project, \u201d said Munir Atalla, Watermelon Pictures head of production and acquisitions.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for Selbak, the filmmaker says of the project: \u201cThe film, in its essence, is about erasure, and the deep human need to be seen. It weaves together genre and ancient Palestinian folklore to reveal the haunting truth that living under an occupation can be scarier than the monsters in our folktales.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In early 2023, filmmaker Rolla Selbak completed her script for The Visitor, a horror feature steeped in Palestinian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344,142946],"class_list":{"0":"post-239050","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-the-visitor"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}