Writer-director Rashid Masharawi offers a visually striking, dramatically effective depiction (1994) of 24 hours in the life of a Palestinian family living in a refugee camp on the Gaza Strip in 1993, shortly before the beginning of peace negotiations. An indefinite curfew is announced while a young boy in the family reads aloud a letter from his older brother, who’s studying in Germany; the effect of the occupation on the community as a whole as well as on a single family is explored in some detail. Recommended. (JR)