Plot
"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.
Trailer
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
Karma Zoubi
Woman passenger to the hospital
Khaled Horani
Policeman in the police station
Hossine Nakhla
Donkey's Owner
Ahmad Abu Sal'oum
the second taxi driver
Housam Abu A'ishe
Gas Station Employee