Twenty-eight-year-old Soraya, born and raised in Brooklyn, makes the decision to return to her ancestral home in Palestine. In Ramallah while trying to recover her exiled family’s money, she meets Emad. Unlike Soraya, he is trying desperately to get out of the country. The Palestine that we think we know and the Palestine that Annemarie Jacir reveals in her elegant debut are a study in contrasts. Moving beyond numbers and cold facts, Jacir reveals a heretofore-unseen nation and a glimpse of something that it at once so familiar and yet so alien. Palestinian life is too often associated with extremism and nothing else, and Jacir’s focus on everyday life, through Emad, is refreshing. Soraya’s rude awakening to the realities of the world provide the emotional heft in Salt of this Sea, and mark Jacir as a filmmaker to watch.