A Bottle in the Gaza Sea

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea (Une bouteille à la mer, Une bouteille dans la mer de Gaza) is a 2011 drama directed by Thierry Binisti. The film, an international co-production shot in French, Hebrew and Arabic, is based on the French young adult novel Une bouteille dans la mer de Gaza by Valérie Zenatti, originally published in 2005 and adapted for the screen by Zenatti and Binisti. Zenatti taught Agathe Bonitzer Hebrew in preparation for starring in the film.

Plot
Tal (Agathe Bonitzer) is the 17-year-old daughter of recent French immigrants to Israel who live in Jerusalem. Following a bomb attack on a local café, she throws a bottle into the sea near Gaza with a message asking for an explanation. Naïm (Mahmoud Shalaby), a sensitive but aimless 20-year-old Palestinian living in Gaza, discovers the bottle and tries to answer Tal's question by initiating an email correspondence. Their mutual suspicion soon develops into a tender friendship.