Conversation with the Sea trailer lands ahead of Toronto premiere
An Israeli court demand for money allegedly owed by a long-dead son drives the story in Conversation with the Sea, whose exclusive trailer was unveiled by Deadline on 16 September ahead of its North American premiere in Toronto on Wednesday.
The Jerusalem-set drama is directed by Palestinian film-maker Muayad Alayan and travels to Canada straight after its debut at Venice, Deadline reported.
Kamel El Basha plays Kamal, a 60-year-old Palestinian man ordered by an Israeli court to pay a large social security debt said to belong to his son. The son drowned in the Red Sea years earlier. When Kamal seeks proof of the death to clear the bill, he finds no official record that it ever happened.
El Basha won Venice's Volpi Cup for Best Actor in 2017 for The Insult, Deadline reported. Alayan was born in Jerusalem and studied film in San Francisco. Conversation with the Sea is his fourth feature, following Love, Theft and Other Entanglements, The Reports on Sarah and Saleem and A House in Jerusalem.
The film was built across borders. It is a Palestinian, Netherlands, Saudi Arabian and Qatari co-production, meaning producers in several countries shared the financing and production work. It was lead produced by Muayad and Rami Alayan's Palcine Productions with KeyFilm, the Red Sea Fund and Metafora Production. Support came from the Netherlands Film Fund, the Hubert Bals Film Fund, the Doha Film Institute and the Al Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art.
International sales, the licensing of distribution rights country by country, are handled by Mad World. That business decides how a festival film finds cinemas and buyers outside its home territories.
In Venice, the film played in the Venice Spotlight section under its original title, Hiwar ma' albahr, with a running time of 112 minutes, according to La Biennale. It screened at Sala Giardino on 8 September. In Toronto, it is part of the 2026 Centrepiece programme, a slate of international festival-circuit titles drawn from 50 countries, according to TIFF.
The ensemble listed by Venice also includes Amer Hlehel, Ruba Blal, Haitham Omari, Bahira Ablassi, Maria Zreik and Rebecca Esmeralda Telhami. TIFF lists El Basha's character as Kamal, a Palestinian father.
What makes this stand out is the paperwork trap at its centre. One missing record. A debt that will not go away. And a father left to prove a loss the files do not recognise.
