Dialogic Magazine

By: Film Review On: May 12, 2011

By Edward Copeland
(originally posted at Edward Copeland on Film)

Raida Abu Mustaffa, the Palestinian mother of a four-and-a-half-month-old baby boy suffering from an auto-immune disorder, says the title of this post to Shlomi Eldar, the Israeli journalist chronicling the baby’s story when the two get into a discussion of the differences in their religions. It’s a shame that forgetting couldn’t be a simple solution to the centuries-old conflicts in the Middle East but Precious Life, the documentary Eldar made from the story does cast new lights on the search for peace through the story of a very sick little boy. After playing many film festivals last year, Precious Life premiered May 5 on HBO.

Raida and her husband Faozi have faced this crisis before. The genetic condition that baby Mohammad suffers from also caused the deaths of two earlier daughters since they could not receive the care necessary where they lived in Gaza. Without an immune system, the baby essentially would be like those famous cases of people forced to live in plastic bubbles, but with improved technology, he can survive in less-restrictive isolation rooms and if the right bone marrow donor can be found, Mohammad might be able to restore his immune system and allow him to live a normal life. That, however, is impossible when you live in Gaza.

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