No Name Restaurant

Stefan Sarazin

I made my first acquaintance with a Bedouin nomad filming a student commercial in the Negev Desert in Israel and spending the night there. When I awoke in the morning, a man in white garb lay close by, his curved dagger by his side, observing me with his calm gaze. My eyes furtively traveled back and forth between my blissfully sleeping companions, the dagger and the Bedouin, while at the same time trying desperately to reach the zipper of my sleeping bag, when he suddenly jumped up and handed me a glass of hot tea. While we had been totally unaware of his presence, he had made a campfire and calmly prepared a gesture of welcome for us.

This turned out to be the ticket to a fascinating world, one that I was to enter again, years later, in the Sinai with my Bedouin friend Adel. During one of our excursions, he showed me an old fishing boat, which had been abandoned in the middle of the desert. The boat had no name and no one knew how it had managed to get there. It seemed, as though Noah’s Ark had fallen from the sky. Through Adel’s small transistor radio, BBC broadcast constant news of the intifada raging somewhat further north. Suddenly, this boat, sticking out of the sand, seemed to be a metaphor for the gridlocked peace negotiations. That Jews and Arabs could ever become friends was just about as likely as a sudden rain shower flushing this deserted boat out to sea again.

Adel and I had talked about everything under the sun, but what had left the biggest impression on me was his mild-mannered perception of the Jewish people since I had yet to hear an Arab person say anything positive about them. Gradually it dawned on me, that it must be the desert which gave this man such generosity of spirit, because it allowed human beings – regardless of background – to look not only inside but also beyond themselves. And so, during further journeys to Egypt and the Middle East, this story evolved slowly and inexorably – all because of a lonesome boat stranded in the sand.

Peter Keller

For centuries the land between the rivers Nile and Tigris has held an enormous attraction for mankind. It is no coincidence that the three great monotheistic world religions have their origins here. Nevertheless, no other region in the world is reduced so much to its conflicts as the Middle East.
In times of crisis, human beings seek support and confirmation in all things spiritual. But not only religious congregations see an increase in memberships, there also is a boom of fundamentalism of every color. Politically, the most simplistic of enemy stereotypes are utilized to close ranks amongst one’s own ethnic, national or religious group.

To counter this dangerous polarization, moving instead the universality of human nature to the forefront, has always been the noble responsibility of art. That is particularly true for the seventh art, cinema, which is able to reach its audience worldwide and directly through emotions.

In NO NAME RESTAURANT the Middle East takes centre-stage, for once not by news of horror, but through a story of an unexpected friendship. Beyond all national and confessional boundaries, this film mediates between two universes, by allowing Ben and Adel to discover simply the human being inside the stranger.