The Palestinian filmmaker confronts the importance of imagining reparations and justice, staging a courtroom and a truth commission to rehearse trials taking place in the made-up free Palestinian state.

Nordisk Film & TV Fond gained an exclusive first-look access to Dalia Al-Kury’s third feature, titled Rehearsing for Justice. The documentary will be pitched to international decision-makers and industry reps at this year’s Hot Docs, running in Toronto from 25 April-5 May.

The project, now in development through the Norwegian Film Institute’s Neo Talent programme, will be showcased in the Canadian gathering’s Forum strand.

Dalia Al-Kury is known for her work navigating cross-genre storytelling and her keen eye on the Arab world. In detail, her films delve into the undercurrents of cultural taboos and societal intricacies. Her debut feature, titled Possessed by Djinn, received backing from ARTE, and was world-premiered at Hot Docs in 2015. Her sophomore film, Privacy of Wounds, made its debut in competition at IDFA in 2018.

“While attempting to fictionalise a liberated decolonised homeland on film, a Palestinian filmmaker confronts the importance of imagining reparations and justice. This prompts staging a courtroom and a truth commission to rehearse possible trials taking place in the made-up free Palestinian state. By following collaborations with different war victims as they design perfect judges, lawyers, perpetrators and court hearings, we delve into the importance and complexity of imagining justice today,” reads Rehearsing for Justice’s official synopsis. The creative team adds that the focus will be on “two or three Palestinians who, together with their lawyers, have filed a complaint with Norwegian prosecutors against Israeli current and former Defence ministers Yoav Gallant and Benjamin Gantz, and Chief of staff Herzl Halevi as well as other people or entities, for complicity in crimes against humanity”.

“The film explores two main questions,” Al-Kury tells NFTVF. “What kind of justice can give the victims of massacres and injustice catharsis? Can international justice, in the way the world defines it today, be sufficient to those who have suffered under its incompetency? Although these questions are highly politicised, my approach, which is always rooted in the emotional and intimate human experience and elevated with dark humour, should make for a respectful and entertaining film.”

Producers are Ola K Hunnes, Jørgen Lorentzen and Nefise Lorentzen for Oslo-based outfit Integral film as. Switzerland’s Lightdox is in charge of the film’s world sales.

The picture will be shot in Arabic, English and Norwegian, with filming planned between Norway, Jordan and Palestine. It received development backing from International Media Support - IMS, the Norwegian Film Institute, Viken Filmsenter and Fritt Ord. To date, the project’s development budget is 100,000 USD (approx. 1,100,000 Norwegian Kroner), and the estimated production budget is between 350,000-400,000 USD (approx. 3,900,000-4,400,000 Norwegian Kroner).

Rehearsing for Justice is slated for a release in the period May-November 2026.

Al-Kury’s doc is one of the two Nordic projects set to be pitched at the Canadian fest, along with Anna Bogoliubova’s Autumn of the Patriarch, a co-production between Norway’s Piraya Film, France’s Little Big Story, Finland’s IV Films and Croatia’s Nukleus Film. The Hot Docs catalogue bills it as “a documentary dystopia that explores the survival strategies of people who live inside the modern Russian dictatorship, which itself has become a formidable force of mass murder”.